Cortland Standard .net

GENESEO — After grabbing an 8-2 halftime lead at Geneseo on Wednesday afternoon, the SUNY Cortland men’s lacrosse team seemed ready to cruise to a sixth straight victory.
Instead, the nationally 15th-ranked Red Dragons needed to score three of the game’s final four goals before coming up with an 11-9 victory to remain atop the SUNY Athletic Conference standings.
Senior Benjamin Dunlavey scored a career-high five goals as Cortland improved to 2-0 in conference play and 7-4 overall, though this game was deadlocked at 8-all early in the fourth quarter before the visitors responded during crunch time.
Geneseo falls to 0-3 in conference play, now 4-6 overall.
Dunlavey scored three times as Cortland surged to an early 4-0 lead five minutes into the game. The Knights cut the lead to 4-2 with scores from Joe Chiara and Ryan Gulbransen, but midfielder Mike Cantelli found the back of the net with just two seconds on the clock to make it a 5-2 game after the opening quarter.
Attackmen Zach Hopps, Matt Savlov and Dunlavey each netted a goal in the second quarter as the Red Dragons lead grew to 8-2 by halftime.
The Knights took over in the third quarter, outscoring Cortland 4-0 behind an 11-3 shot advantage to pull within 8-6 with 15 minutes to play. Four different players scored for Geneseo with four different players assisting the scores.
The Knights quickly tied the game at 8-8 in the fourth quarter as Steven Cregan and Michael Engstrom scored at 13:47 and 12:55, respectively.
The Red Dragons answered with a goal from senior middie Billy Davis at 11:24 and Dunlavey’s fifth score of the game at 9:52 for a 10-8 lead. Steve Aziz pulled the Knights to within 10-9 at the 8:25 mark, but a man-up goal by senior midfielder Matt Rakoczy — returning to action following an injury — at 5:09 completed the scoring and secured Cortland’s win.
Cantelli, Hopps and freshman Devin Phelps all added two assists to the Cortland offense, while senior goalie Scott Tota finished with a dozen saves. Junior Pat Baldwin won 15-of-19 faceoffs and collected a game-high 10 ground balls.
Cortland has a crucial road trip on Saturday, to face Plattsburgh at 1 p.m. with first place in the SUNYAC on the line. Plattsburgh was upended by Oneonta 11-10 yesterday, leaving both of those teams 2-1 in the conference standings.