Scots Fall to 13th-Ranked Ohio Wesleyan, Will be Fourth Seed in NCAC Tournament

The College of Wooster men's lacrosse team was right there in the early going with No. 13 Ohio Wesleyan University, but the Battling Bishops ramped up the offensive intensity over the final three periods to take a 22-6 contest in the regular-season finale on Saturday afternoon at Delaware, Ohio.

Wooster (10-6, 5-3 North Coast Athletic Conference), who clinched a spot in next week's four-team NCAC Tournament with its 13-9 win at archrival Wittenberg University last week Saturday, will be the fourth seed and travel to top-seeded, and fifth-ranked Denison University (14-1, 8-0 NCAC) for an 8 p.m. semifinal contest on Wednesday.

Ohio Wesleyan (12-3, 7-1 NCAC) took advantage of a pair of early man-up opportunities and added a third goal just before the contest was seven minutes old to pull ahead 3-0.

Wooster tallied its first score of the afternoon with 5:13 left in the first period when Alexander Bloom found CJ Polak. Next, the Fighting Scots pulled within one when Sam Kuhn blazed in his team-leading 27th goal of the year.

Ohio Wesleyan pushed its lead back to two prior to Josh Herold finishing an unassisted tally with 2:41 remaining in the opening stanza to make it a 4-3 contest.

Wooster again pulled within one when Nate Weltman made it a 5-4 contest with 9:46 left in the half.

The Battling Bishops took over from there scoring three times over the final 5:50 of the period to make it an 8-4 contest at the half, and pushed their lead to 13-4 coming out of the break.

Weltman broke up Ohio Wesleyan's run when the senior pumped in his second tally of the afternoon with 31 ticks left in the third period.

Bloom added an early strike for the Scots in the fourth period when the sophomore finished a feed from Matt Parmelee.

Jack Gilio had an outstanding afternoon on the defensive end of the field. The long-stick midfielder scooped up nine groundballs, to up his season total to 81, a mark second in the NCAC. The sophomore also had five caused turnovers to up his season haul to 34, a total also second in the conference.