Box Score WINTER PARK, Fla. - Florida Southern earned its first Sunshine State Conference win of the season with a 17-14 defeat of the Rollins Tars at the Barker Family Stadium on Saturday.
Nearly half of the team's goals came off of the stick of attackman Dane Sorensen. The senior from Victoria, British Columbia tied the single-game high for all NCAA Division II players this season with eight goals, the second-most in program history. He added an assist to equal his season-high of nine points, tied for the third-most in a single game in team history.
With those nine points, Sorensen became the first player in school history to surpass the 200-career point plateau. The NCAA's active leader for goals now has 162 goals and 44 assists for 206 points in 55 games.
Sorensen wasn't the only Mocs with a record-breaking afternoon. Sophomore midfielder Andrew Fisher (Monkton, Md.) established a new team record for faceoff wins in a game with 22 as FSC dominated the draw circle (22-for-34). Entering Saturday's game, Fisher was one of only three players in Division II men's lacrosse with at least 100 faceoff wins. He also collected a game-high seven ground balls.
The Tars (3-6, 0-2 SSC) scored the game's first goal to take an early 1-0 lead. From there, the Moccasins (3-6, 1-1 SSC) scored five straight, beginning with a natural hat trick from Sorensen.
However, after taking a 5-1 advantage, Rollins scored five consecutive goals of their own to regain the lead. When Tars redshirt senior Chris Ross knotted the game at 5-5 at 10:55 in the second quarter, sophomore goaltender Matt Lalli (New Milford, Conn.) entered in relief of Austin Suarez (Fort Myers, Fla.), who only made one save in just over 19 minutes.
Only 1:06 after being subbed into the game, Lalli surrendered the lead on a goal from junior A.J. Gogan, but that would be the last time the Tars would hold the lead. FSC scored two of the next three and the game was knotted at 7-7 at halftime.
The two teams found themselves tied again in the third quarter at 10-10 with approximately four minutes left in the period, but Sorensen kicked off a run of five unanswered goals with a man-up tally. Freshmen Lucas Claude (Calgary, Alberta) and Colin Bayer (Merrick, N.Y.) netted one goal in order before the end of the third, and then Sorensen opened the fourth quarter with another pair.
It only took 46 seconds after the opening faceoff of the fourth quarter for Sorensen to score, and it took a mere 16 seconds for him to give the Mocs a 15-10 after the ensuing draw.
Rollins sophomore Jack Vonarb found the back of the net twice in less than a minute to spark a rally. Freshman long-stick middie Austin Jackson then cut the deficit to two, 15-13.
Sophomore midfielder Jack Pedernales (Charlotte, N.C.) extended the lead back to three with his second score of the game 37 seconds later. Rollins senior Stephen DeFlumeri made it a two-goal game again with five minutes to go, but the Tars could only fire off two more shots, both wide of the net, throughout the remainder of the game.
Sorensen deposited his 35th goal of the season with 42 seconds to go.
Florida Southern returns to Bryant Stadium next weekend for its final two home game of the 2015 season. On Saturday, March 21 at 7 p.m., the Mocs will host SSC foe Lynn University in the Fighting Knights' first conference game of the year. On Sunday, March 22, Adams State travels to Lakeland for a 3 p.m. matchup with the Mocs.
