Feb. 9, 2012

Box Score

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio State men’s lacrosse team opened its 2012 campaign with an 11-6 victory over Detroit Thursday night in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. The Buckeyes led 3-1 after the first quarter and 8-3 at halftime en route to the victory. Detroit scored the first three goals of the second half to draw within two, but the Buckeyes shut out the Titans the rest of the way and scored the game’s final three goals for the victory.

Junior Logan Schuss led the Buckeyes with four goals and six points, with freshman Jesse King scoring three goals and adding an assist for four points. Senior Brock Sorensen had his first career hat trick and junior Nick Liddil chipped in a career-best three assists. Sophomore goalie Greg Dutton had nine saves and junior Kevin Mack had a team-high seven groundballs in the victory.

The Buckeyes will be right back in action, heading to Macon, Ga., for a game vs. Mercer at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Ohio State led 3-1 after the opening quarter. King scored 3:20 into the contest, assisted by Liddil, for the Buckeyes’ first goal of 2012. At 7:54 Nick Diegel took an assist from Michael Italiano and tallied his first goal as a Buckeye. Detroit got on the board less than a minute later when Shayne Adams scored at 6:34. At 3:45 Schuss found King for a man-up goal and a two-goal Buckeye advantage (3-1). Ohio State outshot Detroit, 14-6, in the quarter.

The Buckeyes outscored Detroit, 5-2, in the second quarter to take an 8-3 lead into halftime. The teams traded goals in the first five minutes, with Sorensen tallying for Ohio State at 14:02 and Joel Matthews scoring for the Titans at 10:39. Ohio State had four of the last five goals in the quarter, including three in the final 2:35. At 6:49 sophomore Tyler Frederick found Schuss in front of the net for a tally, followed by a Detroit man-up goal by Scott Harris at 4:23. Liddil then set up back-to-back goals by Schuss at 2:35 and Sorensen (man-up) at 1:15. The final goal came from Schuss with just one second remaining in the half. Shots were 14-9 in favor of the Buckeyes in the stanza. Detroit goalie A.J. Levell had four saves in both the first and second quarters, while Dutton had two stops in each stanza.

Each team scored three goals in the second half, with Detroit outscoring the Buckeyes 3-2 in the third quarter and the Buckeyes posting the lone fourth-quarter tally. The Titans scored the first three goals of the third quarter to draw within two (8-6). Harris tallied at 13:43 and 9:00, sandwiched around a man-up score by Matthews at 11:47. Ohio State regained its three-goal lead when Schuss found King at 6:50 and Schuss then scored with three seconds left in the quarter, with senior Mike Smail assisting on the tally. King and Sorensen combined for the Buckeyes’ final goal, a man-up tally at 7:59 of the fourth quarter with Sorensen completing his hat trick. Ohio State outshot the Titans, 16-15, in the second half, including Detroit outshooting Ohio State 8-7 in the third quarter. Each goalie had five second-half saves, with Dutton stopping four shots in the fourth quarter.

For the game, Ohio State outshot Detroit, 44-30. Dutton had nine saves in the cage for the Buckeyes, with Detroit’s Levell making 13 saves.

The teams combined for 19 penalties in the game. Ohio State was 4-for-10 on man-up chances and held Detroit to two goals on eight opportunities.

Ohio State won the groundball battle, 44-24, led by Mack with seven. Schuss and sophomore Shawn Kaplan each had five in the contest. The Buckeyes caused 12 turnovers, with Mack and senior Joe Bonanni each forcing three. Kaplan led the Buckeye faceoff unit to a 14-6 night, winning 10 of the 14 faceoffs he took.

Postgame Notes
• Schuss now has 114 points, with 67 goals and 47 assists, in his career, with at least one point in all 31 games. He is tied for 14th in program history for career points. His 16 shots vs. Detroit tie for the fourth-most by a Buckeye in a single game. It was his ninth game with three or more goals (fourth with more than three tallies) and his second four-goal outing. He now has 10 career games with five or more points.
• Liddil had a career high in assists and points. He entered the game with one assist in his first 21 games at Ohio State.
• Diegel, who played the last two seasons at Central Michigan in the CCLA, had his first goal as a Buckeye.
• Sorensen’s hat trick was the first of his career and also marked a career high with three points.
• King was the only Buckeye freshman to start the game. Other Buckeye newcomers to play in their first game for the Scarlet and Gray were Reegan Comeault, Diegel, Rick Lewis and Luke Howard.
• Mack had a career-high seven groundballs and three caused turnovers.
• The game was the second Division I contest of the 2012 season. Detroit and Delaware opened the year last Saturday.
• Ohio State is now 4-0 in season openers under head coach Nick Myers. It was the seventh-consecutive year Ohio State opened its slate at home.

Postgame Quotes 
Nick Myers, Ohio State head coach
On tonight’s game
“We got the win, so that’s what we were looking for. We didn’t get off to a strong start the third quarter though. That’s not the brand of lacrosse we want to play.”

On starting the season
“I think we will learn from this. We certainly rely on our defense with the amount of experience we have, but on the offensive end guys are certainly capable.”

On moving on to Mercer
“We’ve been going hard for about a month now, and we’re hungry to see a different color jersey. Now we just need to focus on Mercer on Saturday to get that first road win.”

Joe Bonanni, Ohio State senior defenseman
On Ohio State’s energy
“We came out tonight with a lot of energy, but we need to clean up our play. Overall, it was a good effort. They hopped on us with two or three goals early in the second half of the game, but we rode it out and were able to come back to Buckeye lacrosse.”

Logan Schuss, Ohio State junior attackman
On tonight’s game “We got the win and that’s all that counts, but hats off to them though they’re a great team. It was an overall team effort.”

On Detroit’s comeback
“They really strapped down on defense and our offense got off to a bad slow start (in the third). We have to play a full 60 minutes, but that should come as the season goes on. We need to focus on taking it a quarter at a time, but we got the first game jitters out.”