Last-second heroes send bullets into the Centennial Conference title match Sports

“We went a little earlier with our attack, but it brought us a good blow, and Kieran buried it,” said Gettysburg head coach Peter Toner. “Müllenberg is a good team and they fought hard. For 60 minutes he was equal, and that’s what post-season lacrosse is. “

Gettysburg goalkeeper Scott Macmillan denied Ethan Grossman a goal when left 1:30, and after a successful clean-up of the Bullets they demanded a time when 1:08 remained.

The bullets fired for a quality shot and got one when Kyle Howard fired a rocket that bounced off the bar. He was beaten by Quinton Mater, who passed to Gallagher, and this led to Ward’s heroic actions.

“We dropped the crime after we hit the bar,” Ward said. “We had a lot of time to take a good picture and we stayed patient.”

With the victory, the Bullets enter the main game of the conference for the 17th time in 20 years of the tournament. In the previous games in the championship “Thiszsberg” – 10-6. It will be their sixth title in a row, although they have not won a trophy since 2016.

Gettysburg (12-6) will face regular season champion Dickinson (17-0) in Saturday’s title match and will automatically win a place in the NCAA tournament. The Red Devils won on Wednesday with a score of 13-12.

“We have kept at least one tradition here this season,” Toner said of the title match. “Hopefully on Saturday we will win and get an automatic seat.”

Wednesday’s clash was a rematch in a rematch that was played in Gettysburg 10 days earlier, the one in which the Bullets took a 5-3 lead.

“We were in a close match with these guys not so long ago, so it wasn’t something we hadn’t seen before,” Toner said. “We just needed to do a little tougher during the break both times.”

Mullenberg (9-6) went into the break, holding a 7-6 lead after James Dalimar finished off unassisted 1.9 seconds before the break.

Dalimor was a spike in the side of the Bullets all day, scoring seven times and also giving away a couple of assists.

“(Dalimor) is a really good player and he has given us a lot of problems, especially in the first half,” Toner said. “We did a better job defending him after the break.”

In the third quarter Gettysburg broke out of the goal with three in a row to gain a 9-7 advantage when George Raymond, Mater and Spencer Knife tickled the twine in the first eight minutes of the second half.

Mullenberg had the answer when Dalimor scored a goal to halve the deficit from 4:36 to go into the frame, and all that remained until the end of the stanza.

Howard started the fourth quarter with a goal from Naif’s assist, then Mater tuned Aidan Wick, and the hosts led 11-8 and sat pretty much 11 minutes to go.

However, the visitors had other ideas.

Grossman scored twice in less than two minutes and reduced the score to 11-10, and then Dalimor tied the score with a goal pass from Matt Marrella with a score of 2:23 to the end.

“We’re still learning how to close games, how to hide teams when we get the advantage of them,” Toner said. “Come to think of it, many of our guys haven’t had much experience in college in lacrosse this season. They shortened the years to 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic. ”

Ward added: “We didn’t want to give up leadership. But when we did it, we kept calm, kept fighting and followed the game plan. “

Raymond led Orange & Blue with four goals, increasing the total for the season to 35, while Naif and Mater had a pair of goals and a pair of assistants.

Follow Tom Siksias on Twitter at @TomSixeas