Stevenson Men’s Lacrosse was abruptly put on a 27-day pause after only playing two games due to COVID-19 cases throughout the team. Prior to the pause, Stevenson was on a roll beating teams like Stevens Tech and Arcadia by multiple goal deficits.
After this pause, The Stevenson Mustangs returned to play against Eastern University Eagles at home. The Mustangs were 2-0 heading into the game, and knew the Eagles were going to be a tough matchup coming in at 5-2. Junior midfielder Shane Ford said, “The team understands the effect of not playing for several weeks and the adversity ahead of us in this game. The team’s main objective is to get back to where we were 27 days ago.”
The Mustangs fought hard against the Eagles and were ahead with a score of 4-3 at the end of the first quarter. Sadly, for Stevenson fans, the second and third quarters were even more challenging. The Eagles dominated the second and third quarter going on a 5-0 run, holding Stevenson scoreless for 22 minutes. Ford scoring the Mustangs only goal in the two quarters, the Mustangs, then trailed the Eagles 8-5 going into the fourth quarter.
Senior attackman Jacob Tatum said, “No matter what the beginning of the game is like, I know we can pull it together as a team in the fourth quarter of any game.” Stevenson rallied together and stormed the fourth quarter as a complete unit going on a 5-1 run in one quarter. According to Tatum, the run started with the defense putting on a stellar performance throughout the first three quarters. Tatum then said, “As an offense, we cannot let our defense down by going scoreless in any quarter during a game.”
Junior midfielder Cameron Leydig knocked the lid off the top and put his first goal of the game in the back of the net with 2 minutes and 50 seconds left in the fourth quarter. This was a spark for the Mustangs, creating the powerful run to send the game into overtime.
During the opening face-off of the overtime period, the Eagles were called for a face-off violation sending the Mustangs into their man-up unit early. As for Tatum, he was correct, this was all the Mustangs needed for their offense to strike back. After just 33 seconds of overtime, Tatum found the net early and ended the long comeback victory for the Mustangs 10-9, improving Coach Paul Cantabene’s record to 204-10 when holding teams under 10 points.
