Box Score

WESTERVILLE, Ohio – The Cardinal men's lacrosse team posted a notable victory Saturday afternoon, defeating Wittenberg University for the first time since becoming a program with an 11-8 win at Memorial Stadium. The Tigers coincidentally defeated Otterbein by the same exact score last year in Springfield.

The Cardinals, now 1-1 on the season, fell behind 2-0 early on in its home opener before stringing together a 4-0 run to jump ahead and never trail again. Alex Titus found Mike Sullivan midway through the opening period to get the team on the board, followed by goals from Marcus Willis, Connor Dziewit and Connor Baak to complete the run.

Wittenberg (0-1) countered with a pair of goals to tie the game, but a man-up goal from Willis less than two minutes before halftime gave Otterbein a slight lead entering the break.

Baak widened the Cardinal lead early in the third period, scoring twice in the initial three minutes of the frame to give Otterbein its biggest lead of the day, at 10-7. The Tigers battled back to trail by just one nearing the end of the third, but a score from Robbie Guiliano to end the quarter, followed by a goal from Sullivan to begin the fourth extended the hosts lead back to three.

Otterbein would hang on throughout the fourth frame to pick up a critical win on the young season.

Sullivan finished with a game-high five points, netting three goals and setting up two others. Baak and Dziewit, who was making his first collegiate start, each totaled three points while Willis had two.

Senior middie Derek Hohn, who missed nearly all of last season with an injury, tallied just the second goal of his career and first since March 13, 2013 midway through the third quarter.

Junior Carlos Salazar captured 15 of his 22 faceoff opportunities while goalie James Gundling had seven stops in the cage. Defenseman Adam Norris came up with a game-high seven ground balls in front of Gundling as the Cardinal defense limited Wittenberg to just one goal over the final 17-plus minutes.

TJ Smith tallied three goals to lead Wittenberg, which was out-shot 36-26 in the game.

Otterbein now hits the road for a pair of contests during spring break, playing at Birmigham-Southern on Tuesday evening before a Thursday afternoon matchup at Huntingdon (Ala.).