LENNOXVILLE, QUE –
Andrew Chase of Summit, N.J., scored a hat-trick to help McGill outlast Bishop's 10-8 and put a damper on Homecoming Week celebrations at Coulter Field in the Eastern Townships city of Lennoxville, in Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association action, Thursday.
It was the first meeting between the teams since McGill ousted Bishop's 10-3 in a sudden-death playoff matchup last November at Percival Molson Stadium and extended their win streak against the Gaiters to five dating back to a 12-11 loss in Lennoxville, Sept. 21, 2017
McGill improved to 5-0 and sits atop the CUFLA East Division standings ahead of Trent (5-1) while Bishop's dropped to 1-5.
The score was even at 2-2 after the first quarter before McGill pulled ahead 4-2 after two and 8-3 in the third.
Defensive lapses in the final stanza allowed Gaiters' attackman
Mathew Patterson to net three consecutive goals in a four-minute span, narrowing the gap to 9-8 with 83 seconds remaining in the contest. However,
Liam McDonald of North Vancouver, B.C., put out the fire by scoring an insurance marker into an empty cage with 30 seconds left on the clock.
Chase, a five-foot-10 midfielder who transferred two years ago from the NCAA's Lafayette College, scored at 7:15 of the opening quarter, then added one late in the second quarter to put McGill ahead 4-2 and completed his hat-trick at 1:27 of the third to put his side up by three. Chase currently leads McGill in scoring with eight goals in five games.
McGill now has registered seven hat-tricks in five contests, including two by Chase.
McGill co-captain
Maxime Murdoch of Westmount, Que., registered his fifth and sixth goals of the season, and was credited with the winning tally with 8:16 remaining in the final quarter.
Also scoring for McGill were juniors
Colton Campbell and
Hunter Zawada, along with sophomores
Ethan Forgrave and
Cougar Kirby of Kahnawake, Que.
McGill now ranks second in the East Division offence with 46 goals in five games.
"I need to give credit to
Anders Bjella, one of our assistant coaches, who refreshed our offence over a short week after we had an underwhelming 4-3 win at Queen's last Sunday," said McGill head coach
Tim Murdoch. "We made some personnel adjustments and started two new guys on attack and they really did well –
Hunter Zawada and
Kerry Kane. We stabilized our attack and made some adjustments that worked."
Rounding out the scoring for the Gaiters was
Xavier Perron,
Gabriel Chamberlain and
Mitchell Broussard.
Goaltender
Mike Gallo collected the win with 14 saves on 22 shots, while
Matt Wolf made 11 saves on 21 shots for the loss.
The first half was played in a dense fog and a potential weather-delay was narrowly missed as a downpour and major lightning storm hit Lennoxville just minutes after the final whistle.
McGill (5-0) returns home to face Ottawa (1-3) for their own Homecoming Game on Sunday, Sept. 29, with a 1 p.m. start time at Percival Molson Stadium.
Bishop's (1-5) is off until Oct. 5, when they host last-place Carleton (0-3) at Coulter Field.
BOXSCORE
2019 CANADIAN UNIVERSITY FIELD LACROSSE ASSOCIATION STANDINGS
