ANNAPOLIS, Md. –
Evan James scored a Patriot League Championships record six goals, and
Luke Staudt made 18 saves to lift Loyola University Maryland to a 12-7 victory over the host U.S. Naval Academy on Tuesday night in the quarterfinal round of the conference tournament.
The Greyhounds (8-7 overall) now head to Boston, Massachusetts, where they will face top-seeded Boston University at 4 p.m. in the semifinals on Friday, May 5. The game will be televised on CBS Sports Network.
James' night of scoring – his six goals also set a new career-high – started early as he had the game's first two tallies, scoring unassisted at 10:30 and then 9:17 in the first quarter.
Navy's Patrick Skalniak came back with an extra-man goal at 5:12 in the first, but it would be the only goal that the Staudt and the Greyhounds' defense would allow before halftime.
Loyola forced nine Navy turnovers before halftime, three in the clearing game, as the close defense trio of
Cam Wyers,
Matt Hughes and
Alex Bean combined for nine ground balls and two caused turnovers (both credited to Wyers.
The short-stick rotation of
Payton Rezanka,
Mustang Sally,
Max McGillicuddy and
Will Sherwood continually put pressure on the Midshipmen's offense whether in man defense or on clamps and slides.
After Skalniak's goal, it would be the rope unit that would ignite a 7-1 run by the Greyhounds.
Sherwood took a McGillicuddy pass and scored his first goal of the season and second of his four-year career with 47 ticks left in the first quarter. The Greyhounds then blocked a shot on defense, and Hughes picked up the ground ball. He cleared it to
Diego Roman who gave it off to Rezanka for a 17-yard bouncer that found the net with six seconds left in the period.
Loyola would shut the Midshipmen out in the second quarter, limiting them to just six shots while the Greyhounds took 15.
Matthew Minicus scored twice in the quarter, wrapped around a highlight-reel goal by James when he took a
Seth Higgins feed inside of five yards and shot a no-look, underhand shot for a goal.
Minicus' second goal of the half, one that came when he intercepted a Navy clearing pass and scored on an empty net seven seconds before halftime, gave Loyola a 7-1 lead at the break.
The lead went to seven when Higgins ran down the right alley and fed
Davis Lindsey for a one-timer at 11:47, making it 8-1 Greyhounds.
Navy had an answer quickly as it scored off the ensuing faceoff with Scott Stensrud getting the ball to Xavier Arline for a goal nine ticks later.
James responded with a high-to-high crank shot from the left side off a Minicus pass to score at 9:30.
The next 18 minutes, however, Navy would score five unanswered goals, and Loyola would find itself in a two-goal game in the fourth quarter.
Arline tallied Navy's first settled six-on-six goal of the game with a Jack Flaherty assist at 6:41, and Skalniak added his second of the game when he got through traffic on the right side for a goal less than a minute later.
Henry Tolker scored with 10 seconds left in the quarter, and he added a second, again off a Mac Haley assist with 10:54 left in regulation to draw Navy within three, 9-6.
Flaherty would score an improbable goal with 6:30 on the clock as he caught a high pass from Skalniak amidst three Loyola defenders and scored from six yards out with less than five seconds to go on the shot clock.
Out of the media timeout following Flaherty's goal, Navy won the faceoff, but Staudt saved an Arline shot, and Loyola cleared the ball. James then got a short-stick matchup at X and beat him topside to score with a low shot from 12 yards, snapping the Navy run at 4:38.
Navy went into a 10-man ride on the next Loyola clear, and a Hughes shot went wide of the goal, but James was there to grab the ground ball, and he scored on an empty net, and later the Midshipmen put on a 10-man out of a Greyhounds' timeout, and
Adam Poitras beat it for a goal with 1:40 remaining.
In addition to James' six goals, Minicus scored two, while Poitras, Lindsey, Rezanka and Sherwood all had one. Higgins posted two assists, and McGillicuddy, Minicus, Poitras and Roman all had one.
Bean had a career-high five ground balls, and Wyers caused two turnovers.
