Working in the clutch

In a battle between two teams with votes but not in the insidelacrosse.com top-20, Penn squeezed out a win, 13-12. It was an interesting game in many ways, one of them being the amount of clutch goals.

Lehigh went down 13-9 and it looked over. Despite Penn's efforts to run out the clock, the Mountain Hawks scored on what looked to be about half of their posessions inside seven minutes to nearly make the huge comeback. Because there's no shot clock the leading team can take huge chunks of time before getting hit and losing the ball, turning it over, or missing a shot. This is what made Lehigh's three goals in five minutes pretty impressive. I guess that's why Princeton's so good at lacrosse - it's all about holding the ball and making backdoor cuts.

In addition, three out of the four periods saw the final shot tickle the twine, all going in in the final two seconds. Penn scored this way in the first, and Lehigh in the next two quarters.

This game was all about runs. Up 4-3, Penn scored four straight goals in the next 3:30, but after a timout, Lehigh responded with four of its own to get it to within one.

This was highlighted by a nasty goal from the visitors' Stephen Marino. About 8 yards out, he faked a pass to a teammate behind the net and slinged a shot behind his back the found its way in.