Great Danes dominate Merrimack, advancing to America East championship game

ALBANY, N.Y. ( NEWS10 ) — The top-seeded University at Albany men’s lacrosse team is headed back to the America East championship game after a convincing, 18-7 win over fourth-seeded Merrimack.

Key Stat Lines

• Ryan Doherty led all goal scorers with five, adding an assist and a caused turnover for a six-point night.
• Silas Richmond led the team in points with four goals and four assists. The sophomore added three ground balls in his dominating performance.
• Freshman Jackson Palumb recorded a hat trick, adding an assist.
• Regan Endres was dominant at the X, going 20-25 on faceoffs with a team-high 14 ground balls.
• Freshman keeper Landon Whitney recorded 14 saves for a .667 save percentage, allowing just seven goals.

Head Coach Scott Marr : “Just super proud of my team. We talked all week about getting another day together, another couple days. We really want to keep this thing going. I’ve told them since day one that I absolutely love them. It’s so much fun to be around them. The energy we have going with our program right now is really positive, everybody is excited for Saturday.”

How it Happened:

• The Great Danes shot out to a 3-0 lead in the first two minutes of play, all scored by freshmen. Ryan Doherty scored the first and third, Jackson Palumb scored the second. Alex Pfeiffer added an assist on the first goal, Silas Richmond assisted the third.
• Luke Grove got his second goal of the year with 7:18 on the clock on an assist from Richmond to make it 4-0. A minute later, Doherty completed his first quarter hat trick on a feed from Palumb to make it 5-0 UAlbany.
• Richmond scored his first of the day with 2:21 remaining to make it 6-0, a lead the Great Danes would finish with at the end of the first quarter.
• The Warriors scored their first of the night 3:07 into the second quarter on a shot from Jack Rooney.
• UAlbany’s Richmond collected his second of the day with 9:12 on the clock to make it 7-1. Minutes later, he picked up a ground ball from the sidelines and shot a feed straight to Doherty, who scored, in front of the net for a highlight reel assist, 8-1.
• Merrimack’s Kasey Mongillo made it 8-2 with 5:42 remaining, but UAlbany’s Richmond pushed the lead back to seven less than a minute later when he completed his first-half hat trick.
• Ben Wimmer scored the final goal of the first half, hitting on a tough angle with the shot clock winding down to make it 10-2 heading into the locker rooms.
• Merrimack scored the first goal of the second half just over a minute in to make it 10-3.
• Silas Richmond scored his fourth to push the lead back to eight goals, but the Warriors answered a minute late to make it 11-4.
• Jackson Palumb scored after wrapping around untouched to make it 12-4, with Merrimack again answering shortly after to keep the deficit at seven goals, 12-5. The two teams once again exchanged goals with Graydon Hogg scoring his first of the day with 5:47 remaining in the third and Merrimack’s Brian Russell scoring his first with 3:45 left.
• A goal from Merrimack’s Trace Hogan with 2:57 remaining made it 13-7, but Jake Piseno found the back of the net with the long pole just 10 seconds later to swing momentum back in favor of the Great Danes.
• Jackson Palumb completed his hat trick with 41 seconds remaining in the third.
• Doherty notched his fifth in the opening minute of the final quarter to bring the score to 16-7. Two more goals came from the sticks of Alex Pfeiffer and Regan Endres to push the lead to double digits, 18-7, with 10 minutes remaining.

Next: #1 UAlbany moves on to the America East Championship Game, scheduled for this Saturday at 3:00 p.m. The top-seeded Great Danes will take on #2 Vermont, with the Catamounts taking down #3 UMBC earlier in the day.

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