13-Goal Tear Carries FSC Men to the 19-10 Win over Belmont Abbey; Flammenspeck 4G, Walton and Robichaud Chip in 3G Each
#18 Mocs Overwhelm Crusaders, 19-10
LAKELAND, Fla. – The 18th-ranked Florida Southern College men’s lacrosse team returned to Berend Field for just the second home game of the season for the Moccasins as they welcomed in Belmont Abbey College for a Tuesday afternoon matchup. FSC outscored the Crusaders 10-0 over the second and third quarters to open up a 14-3 lead heading into the final period where the Mocs walked away with a 19-10 victory.
The win improves FSC’s record to 3-2 on the year while the Crusaders fell to 1-5 on the year.
Sophomore Caiden Wiech led the offensive effort for the Mocs as he scored two goals and assisted on three others for a career-high tying five-point effort. Junior Matt Flammenspeck tallied a game-high tying four goals to finish second on the team with four points. The four goals marked the ninth time in Flammenspeck’s career in which he has scored four or more goals in a game. Freshman Maddux Walton tallied his second-straight hat trick as he scored three goals off a team-high 10 shots including eight on goal. Junior Brydon Robichaud also secured a hat trick, the first of his career, as he scored a career-high three goals. Senior Brendan Glasser finished with three points including two goals and an assist while freshman Grant Ansted was the only other multiple-goal scorer for the Mocs as he found the back of the cage twice for the Mocs.
Defensively, three Mocs finished with three caused turnovers each including sophomore defender Joe Buxbaum, senior goalie Michael Simone and graduate student defender Nick Shannon. Simone led the team with seven ground balls while Walton and fellow freshman Alex Haughn each finished with five. Face off specialist Jacob Czyz finished second on the squad with six ground balls while going 12-of-23 (.522) at the ‘X’.
FSC had three different goalies see action Tuesday with Simone leading the way, playing 54 minutes of action. The senior made 12 saves while allowing just six goals while moving to 3-2 on the season. Freshman Ian McIntyre saw 5:33 of action in the cage while not making a save while redshirt freshman Trevor Davis played just under 30 seconds in net and did not make a save.
Belmont Abbey opened the scoring just one minute into the game but the Mocs would answer with three-straight scores of their own as Robichaud, Glasser and Ansted scored in a span of just under four minutes to open up a 3-1 lead with 8:47 left in the first. Two quick goals by the Crusaders, tied the contest at 3-3 with 3:56 left but a Glasser goal with just 16 ticks left on the clock gave FSC a 4-3 lead heading into the quarter break.
The Glasser goal to end the first started a string of 13-straight FSC goals which opened up a commanding 16-3 lead with just 13:14 left in the game. The Crusaders out-scored the Mocs 7-3 down the stretch but it was too little, too late as FSC hung on for the 19-10 victory.
FSC out-shot the Crusaders 63-35 including 44-22 advantage in shots on goal. The Mocs also won the turnover battle 26-10 and failed on just one clear the entire game, 23-of-24. FSC also had the edge in ground balls 50-40 while Belmont Abbey took the lead in face offs, 19-14.
Florida Southern will next be in action Saturday, March 9 on the road at Anderson for another non-conference contest. The opening face off is scheduled for 1 p.m.
