Michigan
4-1
Jacksonville
1-3
Michigan Fights Back Against Jacksonsville for Comeback Road Victory
2/27/2024 10:17:00 PM | Men's Lacrosse
» After trailing 8-6 at halftime, the Wolverines outscored the Dolphins 7-2 in the second half for the 13-10 comeback victory.
» Senior faceoff man Justin Wietfeldt won 21-of-26 draws with 14 ground balls for the second-highest ground ball total in a contest in program history.
» Sophomore goalie Hunter Taylor had 15 saves in goal.
» Trailing 9-6 at 14:14 of the third quarter, U-M went on a 5-0 run to close the stanza, keyed by three scores from Justin Tiernan, and held an 11-9 advantage going into the fourth quarter.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The No. 13 University of Michigan men's lacrosse team defeated the Jacksonville Dolphins in comeback fashion by a 13-10 score on Tuesday (Feb. 27) at JU's Rock Stadium.
Senior faceoff man Justin Wietfeldt collected the second-most ground ball pickups in school history with 14 and went 21-of-26 at the dot (83 percent). Michigan outscored Jacksonville 7-2 in the second half after trailing 8-6 at the halftime break.
The two sides traded goals for nearly the entirety of the first quarter, as the contest sat tied at 4-4 with 3:28 to play in the opening quarter with tallies coming from four different goal scorers. However, Jacksonville (1-2) added a marker with four seconds to play in the opening stanza and took a 5-4 lead into the second quarter.
At the start of the second, U-M (4-1) took possession and midfielder Ryan Cohen cashed in on his second of the night at 14:38 of the second quarter to knot the contest at 5-5. The frantic pace of the opening 20 minutes resulted in a nearly nine-minute scoring drought for both sides before JU (1-3) notched man-up markers at 5:15 and 4:03 to take a 7-5 lead. Midfielder Christian Ronda's second goal at 3:04 of the second made it 7-6 and the contest went to halftime at 8-6 after another JU goal.
Wietfeldt dominated the dot in the first half, going 12-of-15 with nine ground balls. Midfielders Cohen, Ronda, and Kyle Stephenson accounted for five of the Wolverines' six goals in the opening half.
Following another Jacksonville tally by Ethan Lamond 36 seconds into the third, the Wolverines trailed 9-6. A turning point started at 10:19, as U-M went on a 7-0 run that began when graduate student Justin Tiernan picked off a pass on a ride and cashed in on a feed from Cohen to bring the tally to 9-7.
Senior Michael Boehm made it 9-8 at 4:51, and graduate close defender Cathal Roberts scored his first Wolverine goal at 3:33 in transition to lock the contest up at 9-9. Tiernan then added his second (1:11) and third (0:31) goals of the quarter to bring the count to 11-9 Wolverines with one quarter to go.
Markers from Cohen (6:16) and Boehm (4:26) brought U-M's lead to 13-9 in the fourth quarter before the Dolphins marked the final score of the contest with 1:08 to play to bring the game to 13-10.
Sophomore goalie Hunter Taylor had his best contest of the young season, stopping 15 shots against 10 goals against (60 percent).
Next up, the 13th-ranked Wolverines complete their spring break odyssey with a contest at No. 19 Delaware on Saturday (March 2) in Newark, New Jersey. Faceoff from Tubby Raymond Field is slated for noon.
