OLIVET, MICH. – Sophomore midfielder Luke Riemenschneider (Rocky River) recorded his fourth hat trick of the season, but the Baldwin Wallace University men's lacrosse team fell to Olivet (Mich.) College, 11-7, at the Cutler Athletic Complex. Riemenschneider's three scores were his second straight hat trick and third in the last four games, and ups his season total to a team-high 20 goals.
The loss drops BW to 5-4 and snaps a two-game winning streak. Olivet improves to 8-7.
In addition to Riemenschneider, who fired a game-high 13 shots, freshman Steve Wozniak (Strongsville/Padua Franciscan) scored his first career goal, and senior midfielder Andy Caballero (Dallas, Texas/Hillcrest) registered his sixth assist of the season.
Freshman Cameron Bazin led the Comets with a game-high six goals. Freshman Dakota Badder added two goals and a game-high three assists.
Riemenschneider scored an unassisted goal at the 10:25 mark of the first quarter to give BW a 1-0 lead before the Comets went on a 3-0 run to close the period with a 3-1 lead.
The Yellow Jackets cut the score to 3-2 when senior midfielder Kyle Sepesy (Parma/St. Ignatius) became the 10th Yellow Jacket to score double-digit goals this season with a marker at 11:24 of the second stanza, assisted by Wozniak, his ninth helper of the season. Freshman attack Vinny Carson (Cleveland/Benedictine) scored his 15th goal at 2:38, breaking up a trio of goals by Bazin, who helped the Comets take a 6-3 into halftime.
Badder scored two goals as the Comets outscored BW, 3-1, in the third quarter and took a 9-4 lead. Wozniak scored an unassisted goal at the 4:21 mark.
Riemenschneider cut the gap to 9-6 in the fourth quarter with goals at the 14:41 and 12:37 marks. Freshman attack Andrew Madden (Lakewood/St. Edward) capped a 3-0 run at 8:38 with an unassisted goal, his 15th of the season, to pull the Yellow Jackets to within two. All three goals during the scoring jaunt came during man-up opportunities.
Bazin and freshman James Collins scored insurance goals with under seven minutes to play to put the game away.
Freshman midfielder Jake Opincar (Middleburg Heights/Padua Franciscan) won seven of 11 faceoffs and matched a game high with five groundballs.
Olivet outshot BW, 42-38, held a 31-25 advantage in ground balls, and won 12 of 21 faceoffs. BW caused a season-high 17 turnovers and cleared 18 of 21 attempts.
Freshman Jake Harders (Rocky River/St. Edward) logged all 60 minutes in goal and made five saves for the Yellow Jackets. Sophomore Ryan McGee had eight saves in 32 minutes of action for Olivet. Freshman Hunter Teare collected four saves over the final 28 minutes.
BW hosts Thiel (Pa.) College on Wednesday, April 24 at Tressel Field at The George Finnie Stadium at 7 p.m. before closing the program's inaugural season Saturday, April 27 at Bethany (W.Va.) College at 4:30 p.m.
FOR MORE BW SPORTS INFORMATION, please contact Sports Information Director Kevin Ruple by telephone at 440-826-2327 and e-mail at kruple@bw.edu or Assistant SID Jeff Miller by phone at 440-826-2780 and email at jefmille@bw.edu. Fans can access the latest BW athletics information at www.bwyellowjackets.com and we invite you to join us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bwyellowjackets and Twitter at http://twitter.com/bwathletics.
