Taylor men’s lacrosse picked up their fifth win of the season on Saturday, March 13 when they took down Concordia-Illinois by a score of 12-4.
This victory marked the fifth victory against unranked teams, with both of the Trojans’ only two losses coming at the hands of Saint Ambrose University. Saint Ambrose is ranked ninth in the nation.
The Trojans came out of the gate quickly in Saturday’s game, jumping out to a four to two lead in the first quarter. In the second quarter, the scoring continued, as Taylor extended their lead with two more goals. They led Concordia Illinois six to three at the half.
While Sophomore Emmit Wintek scored the lone goal in the third quarter, the Trojan defense remained stingy and managed to keep the Cougars from scoring at all. Taylor finished strong in the fourth quarter by scoring five goals.
The statistics from the game show Taylor’s dominance very clearly. The Trojans outshot the Cougars 59 to 20, with 36 shots on target to Concordia Illinois’ 10. On top of that, Taylor recovered 46 more ground balls than their opponents.
23 of those ground balls were picked up by Sophomore Chad Nelson, who set a Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference and Taylor record for most ground balls in a single game.
This dominant performance from the Trojans was capped by several impressive individual displays. Emmit Wintek led both teams in shooting and scoring with four goals off of seventeen shots, while Freshman Aidan Craig added to his assist tally with eight in this contest.
Junior goalkeeper Nathanael Love came up with six saves across the whole match. This marks the fourth time this season that the Trojans have let in under 10 goals.
After notching their first home win of the season, Coach Newhard had a few things to say about his team’s performance.
Moving forward, Taylor has several more nationally ranked opponents on the schedule. Their next home game will be Wednesday, March 16 at 4 p.m., so be sure to go out and support Trojan Lacrosse as they take on Lawrence Technological University.
