Bearcats Come Home With The Championship
The Cincinnati Bearcats Travelled to Ohio State University where they participated in the two day Midwest Lacrosse Festival on Friday and Saturday, and came home with their first MLF Championship, as well as the good feeling of avenging their earlier losses to Ohio State and Ohio University. Cincinnati has never won this tournament before, finishing second in ‘08 and third in ‘09, but this year the Bearcats got hot at the right time and were able to make the victorious drive back to Cincinnati for the first time. The tournament started off at 7:00PM on Friday and concluded with the Championship game at 4:30PM Saturday evening.
In the Preliminary rounds of the tournament The Bearcats faced off against Kent State, Ohio University, and Bowling Green going 2-1 with a 3-2 loss to Ohio University. Cincinnati got solid contributions from the entire team as every player was counted on to contribute through the preliminary rounds in order to keep the team fresh for the elimination rounds. UC won their games against KSU and BG 12-5 and 8-4 respectively.
The first round of elimination had the Bearcats facing off against a familiar foe, the Louisville Cardinals, whom the Bearcats have already faced once in the regular season, and twice in the pre-season. Well, a familiar foe produced familiar results as the Bearcats picked up a 5-0 shutout victory and advanced to the Semi-Final round of the tournament against OSU.
In the Semi-Finals Cincinnati got caught up in a hard fought battle with the Ohio State Buckeyes that went into overtime where the Bearcats Sophomore midfielder Andrew Murray was able to win the face-off giving UC the ball. Cincinnati quickly found the back of the net for the 6-5 sudden death victory and advanced to the Finals against Ohio University for the second time in the last three years.
The MLF Championship game was not very much different from the Semi-Final as the teams were tied or within one goal of each other for the entire game. And just like the previous game, regulation was not enough time to decide the winner and the game would go to overtime. However, in this overtime both teams had opportunities to end the game, but a big save by Goalie Kyle O’Neal, and a huge game winning goal from midfielder Zach Fehr sealed the 4-3 win for the Bearcats as the bench stormed the field to celebrate their first MLF Tournament Championship!
The Bearcats had an outstanding tournament from senior Goalie Kyle O’Neal who denied, rejected, and stuffed almost every shot that came his way posting a shutout and frustrating the other teams to no end. The Bearcats defense got hot at the right time as they were able to control their opponents and keep the crease clear holding their final three opponents to a combined total of 8 goals.
Cincinnati will be playing their last home game of the season on Wednesday night at 8:00PM when they face off against cross-town rival Xavier Musketeers. Dont miss this last chance to see the Bearcats before they begin their NCLL Tournament run.
