Saint Joseph's Men's Lacrosse Rallies to Defeat Marist, 9-8, in Quadruple Overtime :: Mandela Scores Three Straight to Propel Hawks to Second MAAC Win

March 22, 2008

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. - The Saint Joseph's men's lacrosse team defeated the Marist Red Foxes in four overtimes, 9-8, on Saturday at Tenney Stadium. The Hawks rallied from four goals down in the fourth period to tie the game, then held off Marist (0-6, 0-2 MAAC) in the first three overtimes before Saint Joseph's (2-6, 2-0 MAAC) Andrew Mandela scored the game winner in the fourth overtime frame.

After three scoreless overtimes, Marist was holding the upper hand, out-shooting the Hawks 9-5. Saint Joseph's regained momentum, winning the face-off, holding possession and firing two shots, the second of which reached the back of the net by Mandela for the victory.

SJU dominated the Red Foxes in the fourth period after falling behind 8-4 when Marist scored the first two goals of the season. At the time, Saint Joseph's was struggling to find its offense, and being behind in the game from the 11:55 mark in the second period. Chris O'Neill helped SJU to break its funk by scoring off a Steve Varga pass with 9:07 remaining.

The Hawks received another boost to its comeback efforts from its leading scorer, Scott Cullinan, who tallied his team leading 13th goal of the season with just over seven minutes to play to make it 8-6 Marist.

After that, Mandela started his very own scoring streak with an unassisted tally with three and a half left to go, and then scored his third goal of the game off an Alex Lopes assist with two and a half minutes to go to tie the game at 8 apiece.

For the game, Saint Joseph's was led by Mandela's four goals, Chris O'Neill's three goals, and Lopes's three assists. In the cage, Erik Hotaling withstood Marist's first half onslaught that saw the Red Foxes throw 25 shots his way, making 11 saves. Despite Hotaling's efforts, the Hawks found themselves down 6-2 at half time.

Marist out-shot Saint Joseph's 51-36 overall, but SJU had a good day in clearing the ball, successfully clearing the defensive end 20-of-23 times.

The Hawks will return home to take on the Canisius College Golden Griffins on March 29 at 1:00 p.m. at Finnesey Field.