The Denver men’s lacrosse team finished their fall ball season with a 10-5 win over the Denver Outlaws this weekend. Both teams have played each other the past five years in what has become an annual event for Colorado lacrosse fans. With one of the top lacrosse programs in the nation playing the best MLL team during the regular season last year, this was sure to showcase some great lacrosse.
While the Outlaws did feature some of the best players in the MLL such as Chris and Matt Bocklet and Zack Greer, it was the offseason and most of the normal Outlaw players were not in attendance. Former Denver Pioneers such as Boston Cannon midfielder Cameron Flint, Ohio Machine midfielder Chase Carraro, as well as Chace Calkin, Taylor Young, Kyle Hercher, Andrew Lay and Colin Scott were among the other “Denver Outlaw” players.
The first quarter was a slow paced affair as Alex Demopoulos opened up the scoring with less than two minutes left in the opening frame. The Outlaws then found their offense and reeled off five straight goals to go into halftime up 5-1. Freshman midfielder Tyler Pace scored the first goal for the Pioneers and handed out an assist on the last goal to sophomore Colin Woolford.
The second half would see much more scoring for both teams, as they combined to score nine goals in the second half. The Outlaws came back in the second half and responded with three straight goals from Zack Greer, Chris Bocklet and Greg Downing.
Denver then responded with a key four goal run that stretched from the end of the third quarter and into the fourth. Sophomore transfer attackman Jack Bobzien handed out two assists during the run as he fed Zach Miller and Pace respectively.
After trading goals at the end, the Pioneers defeated the Outlaws 10-5. Leading the way for the Pioneers on offense was Pace who had four points on the afternoon. Miller and midfielder Sean Cannizzaro both had two goals on the afternoon for the Pioneers as well.
In goal for the Pioneers, Jamie Faus had a strong day as he turned away nine of the 10 shots he saw in 30 minutes of playing time. Ryan LaPlante saved eight of the 12 shots he saw in 27 minutes of play while Ryan Purcell saw some garbage time towards the end of the game.
With the graduation of Carraro, the Pioneers saw sophomores Chris Hampton and Christian Thomas at the face-off X. Hampton went 7-for-12 while Thomas went 5-for-6.
Greg Downing had two goals for the Outlaws while Zack Greer had a goal and two assists to pace the Outlaw offense.
Final note, the following players started for the Pioneers for their scrimmage:
M Tyler Pace, A Jack Bobzien, D Christian Burgdorf, G Jamie Faus, D Carson Cannon, A Zach Miller, M Erik Adamson, A Tyler Simmons, D Teddy MacKenzie, M Jeremy Noble
