Grantham, PA - The Falcons defeated the Blue Jays of Elizabethtown College by a tight 6-5 score. Messiah leaned heavily on their defense and found the necessary goals to come away with the victory.

The first quarter saw an excess of possession on offense from both teams with little penetration into the defenses. Messiah made their first mistake of the game with a crosscheck penalty early in the first quarter. Elizabethtown capitalized on their man up possession with a goal from Kevin Meakim and gave the Blue Jays an early 1-0 lead.
 
Messiah responded four minutes later with an unassisted goal from Justin Bradley. The second quarter was similar to the first quarter with both teams having long possessions offensively, but not creating scoring opportunities.
 
The Falcons finally created a scoring chance with four minutes left in the first half when Andrew Harris dodged and found Blake Knobloch who located the back of the net. Elizabethtown attacked on offense for the remaining of the half, but Messiah played tight defense and led by a 2-1 score at the end of the first half.
 
The intensity picked up during the second half as both teams played aggressive offensively, and physical defensively. The Blue Jays struck first during the third quarter with an unassisted goal by Joe Clark and tied the score at two a piece.
 
Messiah wasted little time to reclaim the lead as Drew Pagenkopf found Matthew Franken for the goal just 50 seconds later. The Falcons expanded their lead five minutes later to two goals when Will Franken circled the cage and found Ryan Van Bochoven for his first goal of the season.
 
The Blue Jays stormed back in the fourth quarter with back-to-back goals in just 20 seconds and tied the game at four. The Blue Jays Russ LeClair successfully cleared the ball and scored unassisted. LeClair added an assist for Elizabethtown's second goal when he found Luke Stephens for the game-tying goal.
 
Messiah killed Elizabethtown's momentum when Jordan Smith cleared the ball from the defensive end, and found Drew Pagenkopf who ripped a shot in the top left corner for the 5-4 lead.
 
Shortly after, the Falcons committed two penalties and were down two men with a one-goal lead. The penalties proved costly for the Falcons as Elizabethtown's Russ LeClair added his third goal of the game and tied the score at five a piece.
 
Messiah scored the game winning goal with 3:51 left in regulation when Ryan Mayer found Chris Bry who shredded a powerful shot into the back of the net. With 1:30 left in the game, Elizabethtown attacked offensively but the Falcons shut down all scoring opportunities and claimed the 6-5 victory.
 
Statistically, Messiah led in shots on goal (16-12), ground balls (36-27), and face-offs (11-4). Elizabethtown had seven extra man opportunities and only converted on two, while Messiah had one extra man opportunity and failed to convert.
 
The victory improved the Falcons to 1-1 overall and still 0-1 in the Commonwealth. Messiah will next play on Wednesday when they host the Bullets of Gettysburg College at 3:30 p.m.