Michigan Lacrosse Falls to High Point, Defeats Furman

High Point 9 - Michigan 7

In front of a whopping 351 people, Michigan allowed a 5-goal fourth quarter against the High Point Panthers (5-2) and lost a close one 9-7.

Ian King had his fifth multiple-goal game in six contests this year, scoring a hat-trick in the loss. He ended the game with 14 points on 13 goals to start his career at Michigan, and a SOG% of .558. King tallied the first two scores of the game for Michigan, but the Wolverines found themselves down by a score of 3-1 after one quarter.

Michigan did the only scoring in the second quarter, off of unassisted goals by King and Andrew Portnoy, which left the game tied at three going into halftime.

Kyle Jackson and Thomas Paras came out and continued the scoring for Michigan, putting the Wolverines up 5-3 with 8:02 to go in the 3rd quarter. High Point would score the next three to regain the lead at 6-5. After Peter Kraus and Ian King put Michigan back in front 7-6, the Panthers would score the final three goals of the game to take the 9-7 win and drop Michigan to 2-4 on the season.

Brad Lott, who had been solid at the FO position prior to facing High Point, finished 4-15 on the day. Losing the face-off battle will probably lose the game for you, and if you don't believe me, check out the "Must Reads" box and read what a current college coach says.

Michigan 11 - Furman 9

The Wolverines found themselves down 2-0 early in the game, but scores by Ian King and Mack Gembis just 18 seconds apart evened the match at 2 goals.

Thomas Paras would add a third consecutive goal for Michigan to take the lead to finish out the first quarter, but Furman's Hil Blaze found the back of the net just 7 seconds into the second quarter to even things up once again. This was the first of seven goals traded between the teams leading to the 6-6 halftime score. During that time, Mike Hernandez, Dan Kinek, and Thomas Paras scored for Michigan.

Paras added his third goal of the game with just under three minutes gone in the fourth quarter, and Peter Kraus's fifth score of the season gave Michigan their largest lead of the game at 11-7.

Although Furman would tally the final two goals of the game, the Wolverines would outscore the Paladins 5-3 in the second half to move to 3-4 on the year. For the second game in a row, though, Michigan's performance at the X was suspect, going only 10-23 between Brad Lott and Will Biagi.

Chris Walker was the key defender for Michigan on the day, accounting for three caused turnovers and scooping up five ground balls.

Michigan will need to figure out a few things before taking on the Bellarmine Knights (4-1) at 1:00 ET on March 15 in an ECAC match-up. The Wolverines played their best game ever in a loss to Cornell last week--a Cornell team that just beat the #2-ranked Virginia Cavaliers on Saturday--but Michigan should have been able to take care of High Point, and should have won by a wider margin against the first-year Furman program that is now winless. The Paladins also hadn't been any closer than a six-goal margin heading into the Michigan game. The offense is there for Michigan, but if you can't stop the other guy from scoring...well, you know how that works out.

Robbie Zonino is performing admirably between the pipes and has allowed 86 goals on 261 shots faced. But, the Michigan long-poles are going to have to step up their game if this team is going to continue winning this year.