Contact: Tyler Bremner, Sports Information Graduate Assistant

Results

KENOSHA, Wis. (Apr. 20, 2024) – The North Central College men's lacrosse team went down early in their third College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) match but surged back on top in the final period against Carthage College.

The Firebirds (7-7, 1-2 CCIW) scored four unanswered goals in the first fifteen minutes as Jake Westland, Andrew Frey, Alec Gern, and Andrew Johnson snuck shots past Aidan Murphy. Carthage continued its offensive dominance into the second period as George Burchfield fired off another goal to put them ahead 5-0 with 12 minutes remaining.

After a defensive stand from the Cardinals (9-2, 1-1 CCIW) fending off three shots, Rylan McQueary found the space necessary for their first score of the match. However, Gern answered back with just under eight minutes to go to keep the lead at five. North Central sparked an unanswered three-goal effort between Luke Paris, Joey D'Cunha, and Zach Kuyava with an assist from Evan Watanabe to put the Cardinals within two with 1:38 left. The defense would not hold as Frey snuck in a goal for the Firebirds to end the period, 7-4.

With the Cardinals beginning to inch back in, the Firebirds came out swinging in the first five minutes finding room for two scores from Johnson, forcing them back ahead by five with 11:02 to go. This began a back-and-forth scoring battle between the offenses as Luke Illgen and Paris each scored, answered by Carthage's Frey and Ian Edwards notching the score 11-6 with just under six minutes left. Three minutes later, the Cardinals began to get in rhythm as McQueary, Paris, and D'Cunha rallied three unanswered goals in the last four minutes to put North Central back in at 11-9.

Entering the fourth period, the Cardinals flipped the script as a dominant faceoff win from Kuyava allowed Illgen to set up Paris for his fourth goal of the game in under 60 seconds. This began the offensive surge as D'Cunha and Paris combined for four unanswered goals finally putting the Cardinals ahead 14-11 with 7:13 to play. Carthage would answer with their final goal of the match from Edwards just over a minute later. Paris then took out an insurance policy of two goals for North Central to seal the score at 16-12 and net him into a three-way tie for most goals in a single game with eight.

In total, Luke Paris led the offense scoring a career-high and single-season-high eight goals and securing one assist. On defense, Rutger Rawlings and Jake Paris led the defense with one caused turnover and two groundballs each. Murphy secured the net in all 60 minutes recording thirteen saves.

North Central returns home Tuesday to face Augustana College at Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium. Find the full schedule here.

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