GREENWOOD – Returning home to Van Taylor Stadium, the Lander men's lacrosse team ran over the Lees-McRae Bobcats 20-7 Saturday afternoon.
Lander moved to 7-4 overall while Lees-McRae falls to 2-7 overall.
This is the third time this season that Lander has scored at least 20 goals in a season.
Adam Mather led the Bearcats with five goals, four assists and nine points against the Bobcats. Carter Wilcox had a team-high nine ground balls with Jake Watson close behind with seven. Watson also went 14-of-15 in faceoffs. Seven Bearcats were tied for the lead in caused turnovers with one.
The Bearcats started the game off hot with three consecutive goals to begin the first period. Drew Wilson scored the first goal of the game at 13:49 with Noah Longest getting the assist. Longest would get in on the scoring soon after, as he made it 2-0 for Lander at the 10:17 mark. Mather fired home a goal after getting a pass from Wilson to make it 3-0 at 9:48. Lees-McRae would get their first goal of the game at the 6:20 mark. Owen Ciali and two more goals from Mather would close out the first 15 with Lander up 6-1.
The Bobcats turned on the jets in the second period, as the Green and Gold scored four consecutive goals to get within one with 2:20 left in the first half. Lander would score two straight to close out the second period as Charlie Pouland and Nolan Oakey put two goals away to give Lander an 8-5 advantage at the half.
Lander began the third with back-to-back goals to go up 10-5 with Longest and Wilcox finding goals before the Bobcats countered with their sixth goal of the game with 9:19 left to break up the Bearcat's scoring streak. Tyler Kralj scored back-to-back goals for the Bearcats to push the lead to 12-6 with 5:13 left in the third.
The Bearcats would keep rolling in the fourth, with Mather and Andrew Dappen scoring a pair of goals each for the first three goals of the quarter to find Lander up 16-6 before Sean Reilly joined the scoring party with 5:42 remaining to make it a 17-6 contest. Lander would continue to pour in goals, as Carter Clark, Kraji and Blake Moore all scored goals to push the Bearcats' advantage to 20-6 with 3:36 remaining in the fourth.
Lees-McRae would break up the Bearcat's scoring streak, which was 10 straight, with a goal with two minutes left to make it a 20-7 contest. Neither team would be able to score for the remainder of the game.
Liam Mackay made the start and got the win after playing the first 30 minutes. Mackay made six saves. Nicholas Paige played the remainder of the game and made five saves.
Lander remains home as it hosts Montevallo to begin conference play on April 2.
#cLawsUp | @LanderMLAX
