MELBOURNE, Fla. – The Florida Tech men's lacrosse team dropped its matchup with Westminster College on Thursday, falling to the Griffins 15-12 at Panther Field.
The loss is the third in a row for Tech who drops to 2-6 on the season. WC improves to 4-4.
Chandler Hake paced Florida Tech with four goals and four ground balls.
Tommy Bowser recorded a hat trick to go along with three ground balls, while
Justin Williams dished out three assists.
Matt LeCompte produced three points as well in the game on a goal and two assists, and
Reid Chaconas tallied two goals.
Luke Palmisano and
Brandon Harry finished with a goal and an assist apiece.
Kyle Sergio led the Tech defense with three caused turnovers and two ground balls.
Nick Fenex added two caused turnovers and a ground ball while five other Panthers forced a turnover in the game.
Ethan Tosheff dominated the face-off X, winning 18-of-26 attempts and collecting 14 ground balls.
David Demeter earned 2-of-3 face offs in the game.
The Griffins got on the board first with a goal less than a minute into the game. Tech evened the score with a goal by Hake off an assist from Harry with 11:09 to go in the first.
WC drew ahead on a goal with 3:25 left in the quarter and then scored again with 15 seconds remaining. With six seconds to go in the first quarter, Bowser cut the deficit to 3-2 off an assist from Palmisano.
Westminster got the first goal of the second quarter to push its lead to 4-2. Following Chaconas' first goal of the game, the Griffins netted four straight tallies to push their lead to 8-3 with 4:23 to go. Chaconas scored again, this time on a man-up and off an assist from Williams, to cut the margin to four with 3:16 remaining.
The Griffins increased their lead to 9-4 with 2:03 left in the second.
Tech scored right off the opening face off of the third quarter to trim the margin back to four, 9-5. Three straight goals by Westminster, including two man-up tallies, to take a 12-5 edge with 4:48 left in the quarter.
Hake scored his second of the game off an assist from LeCompte with 1:06 to go in the third, kicking off a 5-1 run that spanned into the middle of the fourth quarter. Hake scored three of the Panthers' four goals during the spree with Bowser and Palmisano providing the other two tallies to help Florida Tech cut its deficit to 13-10 with 8:29 remaining.
However, consecutive goals by the Griffins helped push the game out of reach with 2:13 to go.
Not going down without a fight, Harry got on the board off an assist from LeCompte with one minute to go in the fourth. LeCompte found the back of the net himself with 42 seconds left, but it was too little too late and the Griffins held on for the three-goal win.
Florida Tech finished with an edge in shots (50-45), ground balls (54-34) and face-offs (20-9).
With the ongoing situation surrounding COVID-19, Florida Tech will make a decision on the future of the 2020 spring soon. Stay tuned for updates.
For the latest news, updates and information on the Florida Tech men's lacrosse team, visit FloridaTechSports.com. Fans can also stay up-to-date on the latest Panthers news by following Florida Tech Athletics on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
