The victory marks back-to-back wins for LEC, improving the Storm to 3-10 on the season with one game remaining.
Game Recap
Billy Coughlin got the Storm on the board early, needing just 62 seconds to score an unassisted goal and get the home team rolling on Senior Night. The Dragons responded quickly to tie the game, but Lake Erie answered with five straight goals from just two players, three from Andrew Cramer and two from Joey Ellison, to take a commanding 6-1 lead. Tiffin did not go away quietly, though, scoring four of the final five goals of the half to cut the LEC lead to 7-5 at the break.
Andrew Cramer continued his excellent stretch of play with a quick goal to open the third quarter, marking his 10th goal in a two-game span and pushing Lake Erie's lead back to three. Tiffin answered with a goal of its own to make it an 8-6 game midway through the period. That was as close as the Dragons would get.
Lake Erie shut the door defensively from there. The Storm closed the third quarter with five saves from Noah Beckett and two additional blocked shots by the defensive unit. Despite being outshot in the quarter, with the Dragons recording 13 shot attempts, LEC allowed just one goal while continuing to find its rhythm offensively.
Holding an 8-6 lead, the Storm took full control by scoring five unanswered goals to seal a dominant win over the Dragons. Joey Ellison was responsible for three of them, as the fifth-year was not about to let himself and his brothers lose on Senior Night.
With Lake Erie leading 12-6 in the final seconds and no need to even clear the ball, Noah Beckett launched a shot the length of the field and buried it with just seconds left. The goal sent the crowd into a frenzy before the clock even hit zero, putting a perfect exclamation point on Senior Night.
Looking Ahead
The Storm will look to ride their recent momentum into the final game of the season when they travels to face Point Park on Tuesday, April 21, at 5 p.m. The Pioneers also sit at three wins this season and have picked up two victories this week, defeating Tiffin 12-10 last Saturday and Davis & Elkins 16-6 on Wednesday.
Point Park features a balanced offensive attack, with five players scoring 14 or more goals this season, though none have more than 21. Despite being a below-average faceoff team at 41.1 percent, the Pioneers rank second in the conference in ground balls per game with more than 39, thanks in large part to a disruptive defensive unit that forces nearly 11 turnovers per game. Freshman defender Kaden Brown leads the entire conference in caused turnovers per game at 2.09.