BREVARD, N.C. - Despite a six-goal comeback over the final minues of the third quarter and early fourth, the Brevard College men's lacrosse team (2-11, 0-6 SAC) dropped a closely contested 12-10 decision to the Catawba College Indians (7-6, 4-3 SAC).
Offensively the Tornados were lead by the sticks of sophomore Kyle Hunziker (Gainesville, Fla.) and senior Alex Bazzell (Framingham, Mass.) who accumulated four goals apiece on the afternoon. While sophomore Jackson McKaig (Gainesville, Fla.) and senior Brendan Friss (Mooresville, N.C.) accounted for the remaining Brevard goals.
For Catawba, Cole Fanzo led the team with three goals, while Dalton Cook, Liam Lynch and Reid Lichtenberger each added two goals apiece.
Freshman Chris Stallings (Bel Air, Md.) returned to net for the Tornados after a two game hiatus to record an impressive 19 save performance, while allowing 12 goals.
Indian's goalie Ryan Applegate played the entire 60 minutes in net for Catawba, collected eight saves for the contest, while allowing 10 Tornados net finders.
Catawba controlled much of the game, racking up a 55-27 shot advantage and a 46-36 ground ball edge. The Indians also won an impressive 16-25 faceoff attempts and finished 17-19 on clear attempts.
Following a first quarter stalemate that featured seven saves from Stallings, both squads entered the second quarter tied 0-0.
The Indians opened the second quarter on a 5-0 run over the first 11-minutes of play, before Bazzell connected on an unassisted scoring attempt to cut the Catawba lead to four.
Catawba added one more first half goal at 1:56, but it was answered by Hunziker for his 19 goal of the season as the Indians carried a 6-2 advantage into the halftime.
Coming out of the break, Catawba added two early second half goals to increase their lead to 8-2, but Bazzell helped to get the Tornados rolling on his eight score of the season at the 12:18 mark, trimming the lead to 8-3.
The Indians added two more third quarter goals to increase their lead back to six at 10-4, but the never die Tornados would score two late third quarter scores as Hunziker and McKaig connected on their 20 and 25 goals of the year, respectively.
Hunziker and McKaig's scores would spark a blue and white comeback that saw goals by Bazzell and Friss to open the fourth and two back-to-back scores by Hunziker over the course of three-minutes to knot the contest at 10-10 with just over four-minutes remaining.
However, Catawba closed out the remainder of regulation on a 2-0 to take the 12-10 winning, as the Tornados dropped their third-straight game by three goals or less.
Brevard is scheduled to return back to action Wednesday, Apr. 8 as they travel to Banner Elk, N.C. for their final non-conference showdown of the season with the Lees-McRae Bobcats at 6 p.m.