Marquette Men’s Lacrosse Overcomes Rough Start To Beat St. John’s

Tanner Thomson fired home six goals, including four in the second half, as Marquette Golden Eagles powered through a rough start to end up with a 17-9 victory over St. John’s on Saturday. Marquette’s now 6-3 overall in 2017 and 2-1 in Big East action, while St. John’s drops to 1-10 and 0-2 in conference play.

Marquette and St. John’s spent the first quarter trading goals, with both sides taking a one goal lead at some point before wrapping up the period tied at four each. St. John’s took the advantage in the first minute of the second quarter as Joe Madsen and Nick Heller both scored quickly to put the Red Storm up 8-6.

And then Zach Melillo took over the game.

Following Heller’s goal with 14:02 left in the second quarter, the Red Storm would not win another faceoff until the fourth quarter. Melillo ended up going 19-25 on faceoffs in the game, including winning all 11 that he took in the second half. That turned into Marquette playing a lot of make-it/take-it lacrosse, starting with Ryan McNamara’s running goal with 4:54 left in the second quarter. Goals from John Wagner and Joe Dunn gave Marquette a 7-6 lead at halftime.

Thomson wrapped up his hat trick to open up the scoring in the third quarter, and after a Corey Haynes man-up goal for St. John’s, Jack Zerillo scored on this hidden ball trick play by the Golden Eagles.

Zerillo faked the quick flip to McNamara, but the ball never left his stick and St. John’s never picked him up at all, leading to MU’s ninth goal of the game.

Thomson closed the third and opened the fourth with goals to put the Golden Eagles up 11-7, and after a Jason DeBenedictis alley-oop goal for the Johnnies, MU rattled off the next five strikes of the game, all in a four minute span to blow the game wide open.

Goalie Cole Blazer had a pretty quiet game for him, making three saves, one each in the first three quarters of the game, to get the victory. Thomson obviously led the Golden Eagles in points, seeing as he had the second most goals in a game in program history. The record, by the way? Seven from Andy DeMichiei against St. John’s a year ago. McNamara, Dunn, Zerillo, and Robbie Pisano all had multi-goal games for Marquette, and DeMichiei had two helpers as well.

How about some highlights, courtesy of Spectrum Sports and GoMarquette.com?

Up Next: Somewhat of a quick turnaround for the Golden Eagles as they head back out on the road to face Notre Dame on Tuesday. The Fighting Irish (5-3) were ranked #4 in the country last Monday, but are coming off their second straight loss after falling 11-8 at #10 Duke on Saturday.