PENSACOLA, Fla. – The No. 1-ranked Indiana Tech men's lacrosse team defeated No. 8-ranked Benedictine College 20-14 in the quarterfinals of the NAIA National Invitational Wednesday afternoon at Ashton Brosnaham Athletic Park. The victory extends their winning streak to 17 games.
Andrew Ryan led the way with six goals and a career-best four assists while
Samuel Bodley had two goals and four assists.
Nate Langille,
Louis Czech and
Devin Macomber also scored twice while
Tom Piotrowski had four ground balls and two caused turnovers.
Anthony Tedesco also collected four ground balls while
Dallen Wirtz was 6-14 in the faceoff zone with three ground balls.
Chad Nedbal made a career-high 16 saves in the cage to pick up the win.
Ryan wasted no time in giving the Warriors the early lead as he scored twice in 39 seconds at the 10:44 and 10:05 marks to give Tech a 2-0 lead. The Ravens responded two minutes later, but three goals in a 75-second stretch pushed the advantage to 5-1 for the Orange and Black as Benedictine called a timeout with 6:17 left in the opening quarter.
The Ravens came soaring back with three unanswered goals over the final five minutes of the period to cut the deficit to 5-4, but the Warriors started the second on a 5-0 run over the first eight minutes to make it a 10-4 game. Tech took a 13-6 lead into the locker room at the half.
The Ravens controlled the third quarter with a 5-1 scoring advantage to cut the deficit to 14-11 with 15 minutes to play, but four unanswered goals over the first seven minutes of the fourth quarter pushed Tech's lead to 18-11 and 8:19 to play. Benedictine did not go down quietly as they scored scree times over the next four minutes to make it an 18-14 game, but the Warriors stood firm as
Emmett Coleman and Ryan scored at the 4:11 and 3:33 marks, to ice the game and send Tech to the national semifinals.
Tech (17-0) will take on No. 4-ranked University of the Cumberlands in Thursday's semifinal contest. Opening faceoff is set for 5 p.m. ET from Ashton Brosnaham Athletic Park.
