GREENWOOD - The Lander men's lacrosse team didn't let the elements slow them down as the Bearcats ran down the Young Harris Mountain Lions 22-8 at Emerald HS on Friday evening.
Lander moves to 9-3 overall and 3-0 in the PBC while Young Harris drops to 3-10 overall and 1-2 in the PBC.
The Bearcats have started conference action 3-0 in back-to-back seasons.
Kyle DeCrispino led the Bearcats with four goals, four assists and eight points. Adam Mather was tied for second in goals with Jeremy Wudrick, Drew Wilson and Nolan Oakey with three goals while also adding three assists and six points.
Britton Weems collected a team-high four grounds balls against the Mountain Lions while James Linn caused a team-high three turnovers. Linn also collected three ground balls against Young Harris.
Nicholas Paige played over 40 minutes and made nine saves as he collected his seventh win of the season.
Rhys Peterson and Liam Mackay also saw time in the cage for Lander.
The first period was fairly even with just one goal separating the two teams.
Lander fired off the first two goals of the game as Krew Conroy and Mather both got on the scoreboard early.
Young Harris would rattle off back-to-back goals to tie the game with 9:30 left in the first period.
Noah Longest would score a goal with 1:59 left in the opening period on a pass from Mather to put Lander in front.
Lander would turn the heat up in the second period with seven unanswered goals coming from the Blue and Gold.
DeCrsipino got the scoring going with a goal at the 12:29 mark to put the Bearcats up 4-2. DeCrsipino and Longest would score 35 second apart with the Bearcats now up 6-2 with 9:54 left in the second period. Conroy, Wudrick and two more goals from DeCrispino would finish off the scoring for the first half for Lander with the Bearcats leading 10-2.
The third quarter would see eight more goals going towards the Bearcats' scoring efforts while the Mountain Lions would score twice.
Young Harris would be first to score to make it a 10-3 contest before Lander would flood the Mountain Lions with seven consecutive goals.
Mather would get Lander its 11th goal of the game before Oakey scored a pair of goals to make it 13-3. Mather, Quinn Ingalls, Oakey and Wudrick would continue the scoring streak to push the Bearcats to a 17-3 lead.
Young Harris would stop the Lander downpour with a goal at the 1:24 mark of the third before a buzzer-beater goal from Drew Wilson gave the Blue and Gold an 18-4 lead going to the final quarter.
Each team would score four goals in the fourth quarter.
Lander began the final frame with three consecutive goals with two coming from Wilson and one from Wudrick.
Young Harris would score back-to-back goals to make it a 21-6 contest before Brady Myers fired home a goal with 4:28 left to give Lander a 22-6 edge.
Young Harris would score back-to-back goals towards the end of the game.
Lander continues with its conference schedule as it travels to St. Augustine, Fla., to battle the Flagler Saints on Saturday, April 15.
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