POUGHKEEPSIE, New York – The top-seeded Marist men's lacrosse team won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championship with a 15-14 victory over second-seeded Quinnipiac on Saturday at Tenney Stadium.
The championship is the third for the Red Foxes in program history.
- Quinnipiac scored three straight goals in a span of 2:19 to jump out to a 4-1 lead.
- Freshman Jamison Embury scored his second goal of the first quarter with eight seconds remaining in the first quarter. Marist trailed 6-4 after the first 15 minutes.
- There were no goals scored in the first 5:24 of the second quarter until a tally by Quinnipiac's Foster Cuomo.
- Marist responded by scoring four of the game's next five goals. Embury's third of the contest enabled the Red Foxes to tie the game for the first time at 8-8 with 1:03 left in the second quarter. That remained the score after the first 30 minutes.
- Embury's fourth goal – the first scored by either team in the second half – gave Marist its first lead at the 10:50 mark of the third quarter. However, Quinnipiac answered 20 seconds later with a goal by Kevin Blank, which tied the score at 9-9.
- Junior Joe Tierney then scored twice in 52 seconds, which gave the Red Foxes their first two-goal lead of the game.
- Quinnipiac responded with back-to-back goals, but Jojo Pirreca and Hunter Embury scored back-to-back for Marist. The Red Foxes led 13-11 after three quarters.
- Jake Weinman scored Marist's third straight goal at the 12:24 mark of the fourth, which gave the Red Foxes their largest lead at 14-11.
- Cuomo scored back-to-back goals for the Bobcats in a span of 90 seconds, which cut Marist's advantage to 14-13 with 7:53 remaining.
- After 5:19 of scoreless action, Pirreca gave Marist a 15-13 lead. But Jake Tomsik countered for Quinnipiac 10 seconds later.
- Quinnipiac had another chance with under 30 seconds to play, but Tyler Mackay's shot hit the post. Tyler Ammirato recovered the ground ball, and the Red Foxes ran the clock down to five second before Quinnipiac re-gained possession. The Bobcats were unable to get off a shot as time expired.
- Embury had a team-high six points from four goals and two assists. Tierney and Weinman each had hat tricks, with Weinman adding an assist.
- Michael Smith had three assists in the contest.
- Cuomo led Quinnipiac with four goals and two assists.
- Marist had a 43-37 edge in shots. Both teams had 26 shots on goal.
- Quinnipiac led in ground balls, 33-23.
- Marist had just nine turnovers, while Quinnipiac had 14. The Red Foxes had just one in the third, when they outscored the Bobcats, 5-3.
- Marist's previous MAAC championship were in 2015 and 2005.
- This is the fifth time in six years the Red Foxes have reached the conference title game. It is the third time in five years the final has featured Marist and Quinnipiac.
- Tierney was named the Most Outstanding Player of the championship. Billy Andrle, Jamison Embury, and James Sarrocco were named to the All-Championship Team.
- Andrle and fellow fifth-year senior Evan Gagne are the first two players in program history to be on two MAAC championship teams. Both were freshmen when Marist won its 2015 title.
- Both of Marist's victories in this year's MAAC Championship were decided by one goal, and the Red Foxes erased a three-goal deficit in both games. In Marist's 11-10 semifinal win over Canisius, the Red Foxes had trailed 3-0.
The Red Foxes will learn their NCAA opponent and destination in Sunday night's selection show, which will occur at 9 p.m. and will be televised on ESPNU.
