SoCon Final: Richmond Strangles Second Half En Route to SoCon Title
Saturday May 4th, 2019 3:00pm
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High Point
(13-3)
7
Richmond
(10-6)
15
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Teddy Hatfield provided the dagger.
With 7:04 remaining in the game, he caught the ball at the midline, took at step toward High Point’s open net and launched a shot that doubled up the Panthers, gave the Spiders a six-goal lead and effectively won Richmond the 2019 SoCon championship, sending the Spiders to the NCAA Tournament for the third time in program history.
It ended with a 15-7 victory for Richmond, but the game was decided in the first three minutes of the third quarter when Hatfield, Ryan Lanchbury and Nick D’Amaro turned a 5-4 halftime lead into an 8-4 lead with 12:13 remaining in the third quarter. The Spiders extended that to leads of 10-5 and 14-6, maintaining control throughout the entire second half.
Lanchbury led Richmond’s balanced scoring effort with three goals and two assists; nine Spiders registered a point, and five finished with three points.
D’Amaro finished with three goals, and his contributions were surprising and meaningful. An area of concern vs. the Panthers, who won 25-of-31 face-offs in last week’s 15-14 High Point win in the regular season finale, the Spiders used five different players at the X on Saturday. In total, they went just 8-of-26 and D’Amaro went 3-of-11, but he scored goals off of all three of those wins.
All that said, the star of the show for Richmond was redshirt sophomore goalie Jack Rusbuldt, who made 14 saves.
For High Point, the offense just never got clicking. Star attackman Asher Nolting finished with a goal and four assists, but turned the ball over six times and had a dive goal waved off, receiving an unsportsmanlike penalty in the process. They took 37 shots and turned the ball over 21 times. Third-leading scorer Ben Baker didn’t make a contribution and has been limited due to injury in recent weeks. Middies Dalton Sulver and Koby Russell, who’d combined for 55 points coming in, were limited to one point, and Ricky Koehler and Jake Schleppy combined to shoot 0-8.
While the Spiders wait to find out their opponent and will almost certainly avoid the play-in game with an RPI that currently sits at No. 19, the Panthers are a more curious case selection-wise. With Top 5 wins over Duke and Virginia and an RPI of 20, there are very few historical precedents for how the NCAA Committee will regard their resume.
The NCAA Selection Show is set for 9 p.m. Sunday on ESPNU. Check back to Inside Lacrosse for our final look at Bracketology.