ST. PAUL, Minn. – The University of Northwestern St. Paul Men's Lacrosse team was firing on all cylinders against Northland on Wednesday night as the Eagles completed the second-half of last week's postponed road contest with a 25-9 victory, and then followed it up shortly afterwards with a 23-5 win.
The Eagles opened their day with a 12-4 lead and 1:26 remaining in the second quarter, as it was at that point in the game at Northland last week that the storms resulted in the contest being postponed.
Needing to complete the game, the Eagles and Lumberjacks played the final 31:26 minutes to completion prior to their regularly scheduled game tonight. UNW picked up where they left off last week, scoring another 13 goals on offense with their defense holding the Lumberjacks to five, as UNW rolled to the 25-9 conference victory.
Chase Marlenee (Northfield, Minn./Northfield) led the Eagles with 10 points in the opening win, scoring six goals and assisting with four more. Bryce Schmidgall (Hancock, Minn./Hancock) followed closely with five goals of his own. Keller Stephens (Lino Lakes, Minn./Mounds View), Noah Vander Kooi (Buffalo, Minn./Buffalo), and Mat Anderson (Little Canada, Minn./Roseville) each notched a hat trick in the contest.
Brenden Schuffenhauer (Circle Pines, Minn./Centennial) won 21 of his 34 faceoffs, picking up a team-high 16 ground balls in the process.
Christoph Tisdale (Northfield, Minn./Northfield) had 14 saves in goal for UNW to earn the win.
An hour later, Northwestern and Northland began the second game of their unorthodox doubleheader. Again, the Eagles got the ball rolling with a trio of goals to go up 3-0 in the first six minutes. Northland responded with a goal to sever the streak, but Northwestern answered with eight-consecutive goals to take a commanding 11-1 lead in just the first 20 minutes and 13 seconds of play.
The Eagles and Lumberjacks exchanged blows for the remainder of the half, but UNW got the better of it as Northwestern led 16-3 at halftime. The second half was a physical game that resulted in 11 penalty flags thrown, but again UNW came out on top, outscoring the Lumberjacks 7-2 in the third and fourth quarters to take the 23-5 MLC victory.
Four Eagles each had six points in the game. Joseph Will (Rice Lake, Wis./Rice Lake) led the attack for the Eagles, scoring a team-high six goals on just eight shots. Stephens was second on the team in goals with four and assisted with two others. Vander Kooi and Anderson each had a hat trick in addition to three assists in the contest. Marlenee recorded another hat trick as five Eagles scored at least thrice in the 23-goal victory.
Schuffenhauer took all the faceoff attempts for the Eagles, winning 18 of 30 with 11 ground balls.
Tisdale was a wall protecting the UNW net, recording 12 saves and a 70.6 percent save percentage.
With the sweep, the Eagles improved to 5-3 overall and remain undefeated in conference competition at 5-0.
Up next for Northwestern is their regular-season finale at home as they host Monmouth College on Saturday, May 1st, at 4pm.
