ROME, Ga. – The Lander men's lacrosse finished the regular season tying a program record for fewest goals allowed with a 23-3 win at Shorter on Saturday afternoon.
Lander moves to 11-4 overall and a perfect 5-0 in the PBC while Shorter drops to 4-12 overall and 0-5 in the PBC.
The Bearcats also earn the PBC regular season title outright with the win and No. 1 seed in the upcoming PBC tournament. Lander will earn a bye to advance to the semifinals on April 30.
The first time Lander allowed just three goals was in the opening game of the 2021 season when it defeated Chowan 11-3.
Adam Mather led the Bearcats in goals with four while Kyle DeCrispino, Brandon Perkins and Drew Wilson all had three.
Wilson, Jeremy Wudrick and Carter Wilcox all had a team-high two assists while Wilson led the Bearcats with five points on the day.
Wilcox becomes the third player in program history to record 100 or more points. He joins Adam Mather and Nolan Oakey.
Jake Watson went 9-for-10 on the day for face-offs and collected six ground balls. Josh Davies led the way with two caused turnovers while seven other Bearcats collected a caused turnover.
Nicholas Paige and Liam Mackay split the game in the cage. Paige played the first half and made three saves to earn his ninth win of the season. Mackay played the second half and made four saves.
Lander jumped out to an early 8-0 lead after the first quarter of action.
DeCrispino fired home the opening goal of the game off a pass from Wilcox with 14:34 remaining.
Quinn Ingalls and Brady Foote would score the next two goals for Lander while Mather would score his first of the game with 8:51 left in the first to give Lander a 4-0 lead. DeCrispino would tally a pair of goals while Mather would score another to move the score to 7-0 Bearcats. Nolan Oakey would score with 3:06 to close out the scoring in the first period.
Shorter would finally score to make it 8-1 with 13:05 left in the second period before Wilson scored off a pass from Oakey to bring the lead back to eight for Lander.
Lander and Shorter would trade goals with Mather scoring off a pass from Wilson to give the Bearcats a 10-2 lead with 10:09 left.
Mather would make it 12-2 off a pass from Sean Reilly with 9:02 left while Perkins would notch a goal with 6:00 left to give Lander a 14-2 edge and conclude the scoring in the first half.
The Bearcats start the third quarter scoring six unanswered with Wilson, Perkins, Wudrick, Reilly, Michael Mattaliano and Logan Dorcas scoring to give Lander a 20-2 lead.
Shorter scored its final goal with 3:37 in the third.
Mattaliano, Perkins and Ethan Kevelder all scored in the fourth to give Lander its 23-3 victory.
The Bearcats will host an opponent to be determined at a time to be determined at Van Taylor Stadium on April 30 for a PBC semifinal contest.
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