PHILADELPHIA - Graduate student attack Ryan McGee's goal with 2.6 seconds remaining in regulation gave the Saint Joseph's men's lacrosse team a dramatic 12-11 win over High Point on a snowy Saturday afternoon at Sweeney Field.
Coming out of a timeout with 9.2 seconds on the clock, McGee took a feed from sophomore attack Mike Rastivo and fired it past HPU's Austin Geisler to give the Hawks the win in their home opener.
Saint Joseph's (1-1) took an early lead on junior attack Pat Swanick's goal just 58 seconds into the game. Rastivo doubled the advantage with 12:25 to go, but High Point answered with four consecutive scores to take a 4-2 lead. Senior attack Kyle Bruun then cut the deficit in half with a goal at the 3:32 mark, bringing the Hawks within a goal at 4-3 at the end of the quarter.
Dan Lomas scored his second and third goals of the game a minute apart to push the High Point (1-3) lead to 6-3 with 9:54 to go in the half. Rastivo scored his second of the day with 4:10 to play before assisting on freshman attack Chris Blewitt's first collegiate goal at the 2:07 mark to get SJU within one at 6-5. Lomas then added a man-up goal with 1:49 on the clock to send the Panthers into halftime with a 7-5 lead.
Sophomore attack Ray Vandegrift got the second half started with a goal just 1:45 into the third quarter to make it a 7-6 game, but Brad James and Lomas scored 24 seconds apart to give High Point a 9-6 lead with 5:05 to go in the quarter. Sophomore midfielder Anthony Joaquim answered just 12 seconds later before junior midfielder Bryan Garrahan tallied at the 2:55 mark on an assist from redshirt junior attack Kevin Forster to bring SJU back within one at the end of the third.
SJU finally got over the hump, getting an equalizer from Bruun, to knot the game at 9-9 with 11:30 to play in the game. Rastivo then got his hat trick and gave SJU its first lead since the middle of the first quarter on an assist from McGee 51 seconds later.
Connor Robinson ended the run with 8:29 to go, equalizing for the Panthers with his second goal of the game. Forster answered less than a minute later to put the Hawks back on top, 11-10, but Lomas netted with 77 seconds to go to level the affair at 11-11.
That set up McGee's heroics in the final seconds, giving the Hawks their first victory of the 2015 campaign.
"I'm really, really impressed with the resiliency of our team," said head coach Taylor Wray. "To be behind the entire game and to come back and tie it up in the fourth quarter, and then take the lead...whoever got the last shot in this one was going to get the victory.
"They found a way to get it done, and that's what we said it was going to take to win this game."
Rastivo turned in a three-goal, two-assist performance to lead the Hawks, while Lomas tallied six goals and Michael LeClair added two goals and two assists for the Panthers.
Sophomore midfielder Mike Lanham had a solid day on faceoff duty, winning 15 of 25 draws and scooping up a game-high eight ground balls.
Geisler made 14 saves between the pipes for High Point, while SJU sophomore goalkeeper T.J. Jones (1-1) made 10 for Saint Joseph's.
The Hawks will have a quick turnaround before they host Penn at Sweeney Field on Tuesday afternoon. Face-off is set for 4:00 p.m.
