Box Score
By Matt McDermott, GoMessiah.com student manager
Grantham, PA — Earlier in the week, Messiah senior Eric Petters said that Saturday's game between MAC undefeated rivals Eastern University and Messiah would be a war.
The game lived up to the billing.
With playoff-like dynamics surrounding every aspect of the game, Messiah and Eastern battled for conference supremacy under the lights on Anderson Field. And despite the visiting Eagles scoring four unanswered goals in the final 10 minutes of play, the Falcons soared higher, prevailing unscathed with an 11-10 victory.
And although the game wasn't decided until the final nine seconds, Messiah (7-2, 5-0) freshman Brian Meenan played a major in both early scores for the Falcons. In transition, Meenan received possession in the midfield, and sprinted towards goal. His juke left created space to his right, where Meenan rattled off his 11th goal of the year with 5:33 left to play in the first quarter, opening what would be an instant classic.
Meenan played playmaker in the Falcons' second score. At the top of the crease with a two-on-one offensive possession, Meenan rolled a stick fake towards the defender, darted toward goal and then passed to sophomore Kyle Sproles, where he finished for his seventh marker of the season.
But despite the early scores, play between both sides was aberrant. With emotions high and such an intense atmosphere — a season-high 492 spectators littered the sidelines — the teams combined for eight turnovers and a combined five of 15 shots on goal. Messiah head coach Geof Weisenborn said those types of numbers could have been expected.
“Both teams started the game very emotional, very intense,” Weisenborn said. “Two undefeated teams on a Saturday night between rivals … there was just a lot of built-up anticipation for this game and both teams showed that. It was a little sloppy to start. We rushed our offense. We failed to do the fundamental little things.”
Both teams, however, would settle down. When Eastern did, patience paid off, especially on offense.
Down two goals, Eastern (6-4, 5-1) charged back, scoring with 23 seconds left in the first, followed by two David Darling goals, the first on a man-down possession for the Eagles.
Messiah would rattle off three straight scores of its own before half as well, however. Sophomore Kevan Schellenburg scored on a man-up possession with 10:31 to play in the second.
And coming off a clear from a superb save from senior goalie Zach Cureton, senior J.J. Miller scored a superman-effort goal with 4:56 left to play in the half. Miller charged down the middle of the field, dodged to his left and, despite being checked from the right, causing him to fall, riffled a laser, hugging the ground and sliding its way past the post for his first goal of the night.
Junior James Baden finished the scoring in the first half for the Falcons off a quality assist from Schellenburg, whose pass across the goal mouth found Baden wide open for a one-timer.
The half ended with Darling scoring with precision, launching a shot to the upper corner of the goal and just past Cureton's stick for his third goal of the night, making it a 5-4 Messiah lead at the break.
“I thought in the first half we didn't move on offense as a team,” Weisenborn said. “Our passes weren't on. But at half, we talked about playing our style, making sure we were doing the small things right for us to play well.”
Sophomore Heath Kupecky heard and acted.
Miller won the third quarter starting face-off and charged into the crease, where he found Kupecky. What resulted — besides the sophomore's 16th goal of the season — was Miller erupting in exuberance.
“It was one of the most beautiful goals I've ever seen,” Miller said. “That goal really took the wind out of their sails [in the quarter] and got our guys pretty amped. Heath brings the noise. He has such a great shot and great length on his shot. We talked earlier in the week about the momentum the third quarter has on the game. I think this was one of the best third quarters we played. ”
Momentum kept rolling with Kupecky, as he riffled a no-look, jump and spinning shot at the top of the box that set off the crowd of nearly 500. And at the 5:08 mark, Kupecky dished the ball through traffic in a nearly impossible window to Baden, who scored his second goal of the night.
But before that, Miller took over offensively, scoring his second and third goals at the 10:50 and 3:56 marks off unassisted efforts.
Entering the fourth quarter with a 10-6 lead, the game's momentum was Messiah's. Even more so, senior Phil Wendt scored arguably the best goal of the night to start the fourth quarter. Off the opening face-off, Wendt gathered the ground ball and ran towards the attacking box. He dodged passed his defender and shot off balance in the middle of the Eastern defense for the senior's third goal of the year.
But after the goal, Messiah played the majority of the final 14 minutes on defense, posting one of the worst quarters of the season. The Falcons' offense took only three shots after the goal — the lowest amount of shots in a quarter for the team this season — and turned the ball over seven times, allowing for Eastern to surge back into contention.
The Eagles started their comeback with sophomore Chris Farrar's second goal of the night at the 10:27 mark. Farrar later scored his third goal with 4:55 left to play. Momentum kept building with Darling's fourth goal with 3:14 to play, putting the visitors just one goal down after sophomore Will Johnson scored with 21 seconds to play.
Then it was all down to the final possession of the game. When Miller was called for leaving early on the ensuing faceoff, Eastern's AJ Ryan surged down the field to look for the tying goal.
But sophomore Sean Keiper would deny Eastern on the equalizer. On his sixth caused turnover and fourth ground ball of the night, Keiper stopped Ryan in his tracks at the left side of the crease.
“Keiper has a knack for picking off passes,” Petters said. “He causes havoc for the other middies. Plus he can handle the ball and that helps us in transition.”
With nine seconds to go, Messiah had secured their seventh straight win — tying the program's second-longest streak of wins, dating back to the 2007 and 2004 seasons — and securing the team's fifth conference win of the season.
“I thought we were really prepared for their offense,” said Cureton, after his 13-save performance. “(Eastern) has a lot of good players, like (Johnson) and (Darling). We tried to make things difficult for them in the first three quarters. I thought our defense forced them to play outside of their system because we planned well for what they were going to do and we did it.”
Weisenborn agreed, but had a slightly different take.
“Tonight's game wasn't about closing out for us,” Weisenborn said. “We have to learn not how to hold on to our leads like we did tonight, but keep playing our style of play for four quarters. I thought our offense reverted back to their first half play and that forced us to play a lot of defense. It is the small things that we have to build on and keep playing with.
“Zach played great in the goal,” Weisenborn added. “He made some big saves that were crucial for us. J.J. came up big in the face-off X as well. All our middies played great in transition (as the team finished 22 of 25 clear opportunities). Again, on offense, it was a group effort. We don't have one guy that we rely on to score all the time. Tonight, J.J. came up big and Heath had big scores, but any one of those guys can score for us.”
Messiah now looks ahead to yet another hyped rivalry game, as the Falcons will face Elizabethtown College under the lights of Anderson Wednesday.
“We've seen we can be really good when we are playing really well, but we can be really bad when we don't take care of the ball,” Petters said. “E'Town is another rivalry game, at home, at night. We are in the driver's seat and we have the target on our backs. We just gotta show up and play our game.”
Weisenborn concluded similarly.
“Tonight, winning was knowing how to close out the game even when we weren't playing our best,” he said. “There are small things that we have to work on and that is what we will do — go back to basics. When we do the small things, it adds up and we get big results. We can't over look the fundamentals of the game. E'Town is another test for us and we will have to be ready.”
Wednesday's clash is set for 7 p.m.
