#15 Mocs Survive Overtime Thriller at Flagler

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. - The 15th-ranked Florida Southern College men's lacrosse team experienced its second overtime contest of the young 2024 season, coming out on the winning end on the road at Flagler Saturday night in a tightly contested back-and-forth contest. It was sophomore Caiden Wiech who provided the game-winning goal just 49 seconds into the overtime period as he converted a transition goal off the assist from junior-transfer Isaiah Thomas.
 
The victory evens out FSC's record to 2-2 on the year while the Saints suffered just their second loss of the season, falling to 3-2.
 
Junior Brydon Robichaud led the FSC offensive attack as he finished with a team-best five points in the victory including a pair of goals and three assists. Freshman Maddux Walton and Wiech each chipped in four points on the night. Walton tallied his first career hat trick while also handing out an assist while Wiech scored the game-winner along with one other goal and two assists.
 
Sophomores Jacob Czyz and Anthony Guglielmo along with senior Brendan Glasser each added two points to the effort. Czyz and Guglielmo each scored a career-high two goals while Glasser had a goal and an assist.
 
Czyz led the way in ground balls as he scooped up five while going 17-of-28 (.607) at the face off. Wiech, senior Jack Frazee and freshman Alex Haughn all finished with four ground balls to rank tied for second on the squad.
 
Haughn tied with sophomore Joe Buxbaum for the team-lead in caused turnovers as they each finished with two on the night.
 
Senior goalie Michael Simone made double-digit saves for the fifth-straight contest dating back to the end of the 2023 season as he stopped 13 Saints' shots while seeing 60:49 minutes of action in the cage. His season record improves to 2-2 while he has already racked up 60 saves on the season.
 
Flagler out-shot the Mocs 39-35 including a 26-22 advantage of on-goal attempts. The Saints also won the turnover battle 16-12 and went a perfect 18-of-18 in clears while holding the Mocs to 17-of-19. The three areas the Mocs took the advantage in were ground balls (31-26), face offs (18-13) and extra-man opportunities as FSC went 3-of-7 (.429) while the Saints were 1-of-3 (.333).
 
In what was an extremely tight and back-and-forth contest both teams scored three goals in the first and three goals in the second to enter halftime tied at 6-6. The Mocs led by as many as two in the first quarter while the Saints took a two-goal lead in the second but by the time the 30 minutes of action were up all was equal.
 
The third quarter saw the Mocs take their first lead at a break as FSC led 9-8 after 45 minutes of play. Guglielmo scored a man-up goal off an assist from Robichaud with just 17 seconds left in the period to break the deadlock and give FSC the lead at the break.
 
The Saints opened the scoring in the fourth just over three minutes into the period. FSC scored back-to-back goals in the span of 38 seconds to tie and then re-take the lead at 10-9 with 11:16 left to play. Just under two minutes later it was once again Guglielmo from Robichaud on an extra-man opportunity as the pair helped tie the game at 10-10. Just 2:22 later, Flagler once again found the back of the net to re-take a one goal lead with 7:00 left in the game.
 
After both teams went scoreless for the next three minutes, Flagler connected again to push the advantage to two at 12-10 with 3:34 remaining. The Mocs quickly responded just 16 seconds later as Czyz won the face off and quickly fed the ball down the right-side of the field to Walton who pushed past the defense to score a quick goal and cut the deficit to just one. Walton would score again just over a minute later as he tallied his third goal of the game and tied the contest at 12-12.
 
Despite dropping the ensuing face off, Czyz stayed on the field defensively for a short time and FSC was able to force a turnover which led to Czyz racing down the field and converting an assist from Walton to give FSC a 13-12 lead with 1:43 left in the game. The Saints evened the score just over a minute later and neither team was able to score over the final 40 seconds of regulation which sent the game into overtime.
 
Flagler won the opening face off of overtime on a violation and quickly called timeout to setup an offense play. FSC had the defensive answer as Buxbaum caused the turnover and fed the ball down the field to Thomas who found a streaking Wiech for the game-winning goal just 49 seconds into the period.
 
The Mocs will now return home for their second home contest of the season as Belmont Abbey visits Berend Field on Tuesday, March 5 at noon.  
 
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