CHARLOTTE, N.C. – There’s a noticeable difference lately in the Charlotte Hounds.
For starters, the Hounds are coming up with clutch plays – a problem the team had during their 1-4 start to the 2014 Major League Lacrosse season.
Those clutch plays are also leading to wins.
Saturday night, it was Mike Sawyer and Adam Ghitelman who came up big for Charlotte during its 14-13 victory over the Florida Launch at American Legion Memorial Stadium.
Sawyer had three goals – two, including a 2-pointer, coming in a 15-second stretch at the end of the third quarter – and Ryan Young and rookie Mike Chanenchuk added two goals each for the Hounds (3-4).
Charlotte has now won two straight games – its longest winning streak since the closing weeks of the 2013 season – and have done so against two of the league’s frontrunners.
The streak began with an 18-15 win over the Denver Outlaws last week – ending that team’s 25-game regular-season winning streak – and continued with the Launch (4-3), who beat the Hounds 11-8 on May 3 in Boca Raton, Fla.
Yet Charlotte still had its hands full with Florida.
Behind four goals by Kevin Crowley and three from Stephen Keogh, the Launch fought back from an early 2-0 deficit to tie the score four times. Florida would eventually take its first lead at 9-8 on Casey Powell’s goal with 6:37 left in the third quarter.
However, Mason Poli’s goal with 4:50 left kicked off a five-point run. Chanenchuk put the Hounds ahead 10-9, and Sawyer’s back-to-back goals – including the 2-pointer with 6.6 seconds remaining – gave Charlotte a 13-9 margin.
The Launch made another run in the fourth quarter, twice pulling within a goal and having good chances to tie the score in the final minutes.
That’s when Ghitelman (who had 14 saves Saturday) stepped up, making two stops on close-in shots – deflecting one from Garrett Thul, making a clean save on Powell’s shot for the second – to preserve the Hounds’ win.
Rookie Justin Ward added one goal and three assists, and Matt Danowski had one goal and two assists. Also scoring for Charlotte were John Haus, Pat Laconi, and Thomas DeNapoli.
Three players – Powell, Kieran McArdle and Kevin Cunningham – added two goals each for Florida. Powell also had three assists.
