Faceoff extraordinaire Trevor Baptiste, just a junior, reached 20 faceoff wins in a game for the 12th time Saturday to lead the University of Denver men’s lacrosse team to a 20-11 victory over Georgetown and break the program record for successful draws.
Needing 10 faceoff wins to tie Chase Carraro (2010-13) for the school record of 720, Baptiste went 13-of-16 in the first half at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium and surpassed Carraro early in the second quarter. Baptiste finished 26-of-30 and scored once on a fast break off the draw.
“I just take it faceoff-by-faceoff, game-by-game, and I get a lot of help on the wings,” Baptiste said. “It’s definitely great to be in the books but, you know, it’s not the top of the list. I want to win (another) national championship with the team.”
has 10 ground balls off his 13 faceoff wins, winning the other three by violation.
— Denver Men’s Lacrosse (@DU_MLAX)
The 2015 national champions trailed 4-2 early, took an 8-6 lead into halftime and dominated play in the second half to easily win their Big East Conference opener. They went on a 7-0 run in the third quarter, in which they outscored the Hoyas 8-2.
“I’m proud of the guys,” DU coach Bill Tierney said. “We got off to a terrible start — credit to Georgetown for that. But we got in the locker room, Coach (Matt) Brown made a couple of adjustments and I think we came in the second half a lot more ready.”
In reaching 20 goals for the first time since 2012, Denver (7-2, 1-0) got four goals and nine points from senior attack Connor Cannizzaro, who was held to a goal and an assist in the first half. Freshman attack Ethan Walker and sophomore attack Austin French each had three goals and two assists and midfielder Connor Donahue had four points (two goals).
Georgetown (2-8, 0-2) forced 11 Denver turnovers, including five early in taking a 4-2 lead.
“Defensively, we didn’t play very well. Our individual defense wasn’t good, our help defense wasn’t good,” Tierney said. “(Goalie) Alex (Ready) wasn’t great. We just didn’t have a good day defensively, so that’s why, thank God, we have a guy like Trevor who is going to get us the ball back, even if they score. But we’ll get better.”
Said Baptiste: “I’m really happy no one got down on each other. We all did it as a team, we all got together and just got the job done.”
The Pioneers continue the Big East portion of their schedule next Sunday against Villanova at Barton Stadium, where DU is 55-8 under Tierney and 86-17 since its opening in 2005.
