Blue Hens Pull Out Gritty 15-14 Road Win At Marist

Saturday, March 7

Poughkeepsie, NY

1 p.m.

University of Delaware

4-2

Marist

3-3

Delaware

Marist

Photo by: Ryan Griffith

3/7/2020 4:30:00 PM | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. – Heart. Toughness. Resiliency. Clutch plays.

The University of Delaware men's lacrosse team displayed all of that and then some in a gritty 15-14 road win at Marist on Saturday afternoon in New York. It was the Blue Hens' third road game in the past four outings.

"Our guys showed tremendous fight today. That was a true team win, with strong performances from our starters and key contributors from several players coming off of the bench," head coach Ben DeLuca said. "We were able to adjust on the fly and execute when we needed it the most down the stretch."

Sophomore Tye Kurtz led a potent offensive attack with six points (two goals and four assists), while seniors Charlie Kitchen and Bryce Reid both had hat tricks in the victory. Mike Robinson and Clay Miller had two goals and one assist each to give Delaware five multi-goal scorers in the contest.

Kitchen's goal in the first quarter extended his goal-scoring streak to 38, which is the nation's longest active streak and currently 12^th longest all-time in NCAA Division I history.

"We knew coming in that it was going to be a back and forth game and regardless of what happened we knew if we were able to settle down and play our brand of lacrosse, we would be fine," Kurtz said. "I thought a lot of guys stepped up and made some really big plays for us down the stretch and we did what we needed to in order to get the win."

Defensively, Matt DeLuca had 14 saves on the afternoon and currently sits fifth all-time in program history with 573 career saves. Senior Thomas Aloe had three groundballs and one caused turnover, along with three faceoff wins, while both Kevin McCormick and Owen Grant had long pole goals for the Blue Hens.

"Today, they had their runs and we had ours. We focused on staying not too high and not too low," Aloe said. "We had guys make big plays down the stretch, when we really needed them. Our guys stepped up across the board to secure the win."

The back-and-forth battle started right from the beginning with each team trading goals over the first 10 minutes with Marist getting a goal in the final 10 seconds of the first to take a 3-2 after one period.

Delaware would tie things up twice in the second, but once again Marist would strike late, this time getting two goals in the final minute of the half to take a 7-5 cushion into the break.

The Red Foxes got the first goal of the second half, but that's when the Blue Hens flexed their muscles.

Reid started it with back-to-back goals in a two-minute span and Robinson followed with back-to-back goals of his own, this time in a span of 22 seconds to quickly put the Blue Hens ahead 9-8.

Kitchen would add to the advantage and Grant's goal in the final 30 seconds of the third gave Delaware an 11-8 advantage.

After Marist got another late goal in the third, goals from Reid and McCormick gave the Blue Hens their largest lead of the day at 13-9. The Red Foxes weren't done, scoring three straight goals to make it a one-goal game with under six minutes to play.

The teams would trade goals over the next 3 minutes to make it a 15-14 game with 2:30 minutes remaining.

DeLuca would come up huge with two saves in the final two minutes, including one at the buzzer to help secure the road victory for the Blue Hens.

Up Next

Delaware returns home for four straight games. That stretch starts on Tuesday, January 17 when the Blue Hens welcome perennial national power Johns Hopkins to Delaware Stadium. Game time is set for 7 p.m.