The Virginia Wesleyan University men's lacrosse team (1-0) defeated Neumann 18-17 in overtime for the 2025 season opener.
Ben Andrews led the team with six goals, and two assists, on 11 shots; had four ground balls, and one caused turnover.
Carlton Benton Jr. recorded three goals, and two assists, on six shots, and had three ground balls.
Cooper Seidner was huge as he scored three goals including the overtime goal on five shots and caused one turnover.
Zack Tucker registered the win in net as he played 61:07 minutes, allowed 17 goals against, and made 17 saves.
A close first quarter as Neumann scored first to lead 1-0, but the Marlins scored the next two goals courtesy of
Ben Andrews and
Parker Lucas to lead 2-1 with 9:55 left in the quarter. Neumann scored 16 seconds later to tie the game at 2-2. Then, Seider scored his first goal of the game, to give VWU a 3-2 lead. However, the Knights scored back-to-back goals to lead 4-3 with 3:25 left in the quarter.
George Psaltis scored an unassisted goal with 57 seconds in the quarter to tie the game at 4-4.
Virginia Wesleyan scored first in the second quarter, as Seider scored a man-up goal with an assist from
Ben Andrews to take a 5-4 lead. The Knights countered scoring three straight goals to lead 7-5.
Liam Murphy got on the board with an unassisted goal to bring the score to 7-6 at the 10:48 mark. Neumann scored the next goal to extend their lead to 8-6, but
Ben Andrews scored a man-up goal to bring VWU back within one. The Knights scored again to extend their lead, but the Marlins responded by scoring three unanswered goals, two from
Ben Andrews and one from Carlton Benton to take a 10-9 lead into halftime.
Neumann came out of the break strong and outscored the Marlins 4-1 in the first five minutes of the quarter with
Kris Krause scoring the lone goal for VWU with an assist from
Jacob Carroll. Virginia Wesleyan fought back and went on to score three straight goals. Psaltis started the rally with an assist from Benton, then Murphy scored off a feed from Andrews, and Andrews scored off a nice pass from Benton to take a 14-13 lead with 5:51 in the third quarter. Neumann scored a man-up goal to tie the game at 14-14, but in the final minute of the quarter, Carlton Benton scored to lead 15-14. The Knights quickly got back on offense and scored with nine seconds left in the quarter tying the game at 15-15 heading into the final frame.
In the fourth quarter, the Marlins came out hot, as Benton scored a goal with an assist from
Jackson Dinger to lead 16-15. Holding a narrow lead VWU's
Ben Andrews scored 45 seconds later to go up 17-15. Over the next 10 minutes, the Marlins played hard defense holding off the Neumann attack, until the Knights scored in with 1:27 on the clock to cut the lead to 17-16. Neumann pushed hard and scored with six seconds left to force overtime with the team tied at 17 apiece.
In overtime, the Marlins won the critical faceoff and immediately called a timeout to plan their attack. After a missed shot by
Parker Lucas, Lucas drove from up top and fed the ball to Cooper Seider who hit the top right corner of the net to give the Marlins the 18-17 overtime win.
