LIU Lax upend Mavericks in ranked showdown

Michael Otero

It came down to the wire for the no. 8 ranked LIU Post men’s lacrosse team on Saturday, April 23, but they managed to pull out a gritty 10-9 victory over no. 13 Mercy College in an East Coast Conference battle at Bethpage Federal Credit Union Stadium in Brookville, N.Y. 

Senior attackman Matt Bellando scored the go-ahead and eventual game-winning goal with 99 seconds left to secure the win. Assisting with the game winning tally was graduate midfielder Jeremy Morgan. 

Well before Bellando rounded out the scoring, he started it. The senior netted a goal at the 14:16 mark of the first period to open up what would be a combined 19 goal day for both sides. That goal started a mini Pioneer run which widened to 4-1 when Bellando found the back of the cage for his second goal of the contest. After the Pioneers and Mavericks traded goals, senior attackman Matty Beccaris scored an unassisted goal to make it 6-2 in favor of the Pioneers. 

The Mavericks regrouped and got back in the flow of the game, but faced an 8-5 disadvantage at halftime. Although they were down, they were not out. The Mavericks battled back, eventually tying the contest at nine apiece. The game-tying goal came courtesy of junior midfielder Nick Wilcox, who notched his seventeenth goal of the season to go along with three first half assists. 

During the Maverick comeback, the Pioneers were held to just one goal and they committed six crucial turnovers. After Wilcox’s unassisted tally, which tied the game, the stage was set for Bellando to shine. And shine he did.  

LIU head men’s lacrosse coach John Jez said after the game that his team held in and “dug deep.” He gave credit to the Mercy goaltender and defense that played well in the second half, but also noted that “our defense made the key stops when they had to.”

No surprise, but Bellando was the leading-scorer for both teams with five points (4G, 1A), while Beccaris added four points (3G, 1A) to help out the Pioneer cause. In addition to the senior attackmen, sophomore midfielder Dylan Harned chipped in with a two goal performance. 

In the cage, junior goal keeper Matthew Liantonio made six saves for the Pioneers. As a team, the Pioneers outshoot the Mavericks at a 2:1 ratio and scooped up ground balls at a higher and more efficient rate. The Pioneers also had the upper hand in face-offs, winning 13 compared to just eight for the Mavericks. 

With the win, the Pioneers improved to 9-3 for the season and 6-1 in conference play. The Pioneers have now won five games in a row and haven’t lost in over a month. The Mercy College Mavericks dropped to 9-4 and are now 5-3 in conference play.  

Jez and his team finish their regular season on Saturday, April 30, when they host the University of the District of Columbia. “They are a talented team that plays hard all the time,” said Jez, referring to the University of the District of Columbia. “It’ll be a tough one.” In their matchup one year prior, the Pioneers came out victorious 13-5. The ECC matchup is scheduled to start at 2 p.m. 

This article was originally published in the Pioneer, the award-winning student newspaper of LIU Post, www.liupostpioneer.com, and is republished here by Blank Slate Media with the permission of the Pioneer.

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