DUBUQUE, Iowa – The University of Northwestern Men's Lacrosse team traveled south for its penultimate regular season game Wednesday, taking on NAIA opponent Clarke University. Northwestern hoped to gain some momentum heading into next week's conference finale and the ensuing Midwest Lacrosse Conference playoffs, and they certainly found it. The Eagles led 13-1 after three quarters and cruised to a dominant 18-4 win over the Pride thanks to a monster game from junior
Austin Lemke (Inver Grove Heights, Minn./Saint Croix Lutheran Academy).
The game went scoreless for nearly 10 minutes to start before
Ryan Adkins (St. Michael, Minn./St. Michael-Albertville) broke the ice with 5:38 remaining in the opening quarter. Lemke added a goal at the 3:46 mark and
Alex Petersen (Prior Lake, Minn./Prior Lake) did the same 1:18 later, giving UNW a 3-0 lead at the end of one.
Clarke scored just under three minutes into the second period to briefly trim the deficit to two, but that's when
Jay Mayes's squad really began to assert its dominance. Lemke assisted a
Khoa Vu (Shakopee, Minn./Shakopee) goal with 10:24 left, then Vu found
Christian Mitchell (Oak Grove, Minn./PACT Charter School) for a goal just under three minutes later. Mitchell added his second goal with 1:44 remaining in the half, courtesy of an assist from reigning MLC Offensive Player of the Week
Sam Moses (Wausau, Wis./Wausau East). The scoring spurt gave Northwestern a 7-1 lead at the intermission.
If the end of the second quarter was a scoring spurt for UNW, the third quarter was a scoring tsunami. If you blinked, you probably missed Lemke's second goal of the game which occurred just 37 seconds into the second half. Vu netted his second with 9:34 on the clock, then Lemke scored two more within 69 seconds of each other to give himself five goals and extend the lead to double digits at 11-1. Mitchell joined Lemke in the hat trick brigade at the 4:20 mark off a dime from Petersen, then
Tyler Heyen (Big Lake, Minn./Big Lake) rattled the cage with 2:39 left to give Northwestern a 13-1 lead entering the final 15.
Clarke was finally able to score that ever-elusive second goal to kick off the fourth quarter, but UNW answered right back via Mitchell's fourth goal of the night.
Brenden Schuffenhauer (Lino Lakes, Minn./Centennial) then got on the board off an assist from Lemke to give Northwestern its largest lead of the night to that point at 15-2. The Pride scored twice to shrink the gap to 11, but the Eagles still had some gas left in the tank. Lemke tacked on two more scores and Adkins added his second (assisted by Mitchell) to give Northwestern an 18-4 win and draw even at a 5-5 record in 2024.
The offense was plentiful for UNW, who out-shot Clarke 51-26 and 27-10 on goal, but Lemke shone the brightest. The junior attackman scored an astounding seven goals and dished out two assists to go along with five ground balls and two caused turnovers on the defensive end. Mitchell added four goals and an assist, while Vu finished with two and one, respectively. Adkins, who was named MLC Defensive Player of the Week on Monday, backed up the honor by scoring two goals and collecting a game-high 12 ground balls en route to winning 17 of 24 faceoffs. Schuffenhauer, Heyen and Petersen each scored one goal, with the latter adding an assist as well. Defensively,
Jared Schultz (Lino Lakes, Minn./Centennial) snagged three ground balls and caused three turnovers, while Moses tallied three ground balls, adding an assist.
Eli Olmscheid (Monticello, Minn./Monticello) caused a game-high four turnovers on the back end as well.
Robert McHenry (Crystal, Minn./Robbinsdale Armstrong) was outstanding in cage holding the Pride to just one goal in the first three quarters and finishing the game with six saves.
Northwestern will have a long layoff before finishing the regular season at home on Saturday, April 27
th versus Northland College. The Eagles will honor their nine seniors as they also celebrate the history of UNW Men's Lacrosse. Faceoff is scheduled for 2:00 PM at Reynolds Field.
