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WESTERVILLE, Ohio – In potentially the final home game inside Memorial Stadium for five seniors, the Otterbein men's lacrosse team delivered its most exciting and important result of the season with a 16-15 triumph over first-place Baldwin Wallace Saturday afternoon.

The Cardinals led for most of the contest but found themselves trailing, 15-14, as the last minute of the fourth quarter approached. In a fitting script, all-time leading scorer and senior attackman Connor Dziewit found the back of the net twice in the final 61 seconds to help lift the home team.

Otterbein, now 8-6 overall and 5-1 within the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC), now sit in a three-way tie atop the league standings with John Carroll and Ohio Northern. As fate will have it, the Cards will travel and play those two schools next week in the closing regular-season stretch.

Otterbein, recognizing Dziewit and fellow seniors Mike Davidson, Anthony Spingola, Clay Wichman and Matt Niemi during pregame, carried those emotions into the first quarter by erupting for a quick 4-0 lead. Mike Roman corralled the opening faceoff and sprinted to assist Xander Seal just seven seconds in.

Baldwin Wallace (9-4, 5-2 OAC) weathered the early storm and settled in, fighting back to tie the game at 5-5 and then jumping ahead a few minutes later on an unassisted goal from Matt McDowell at the 8:49 mark of the second period. Otterbein responded to close the half strong, scoring three-straight times and culminating on a Joe Sanfillipo goal with 31 seconds to play before intermission.

BW drew even at 8-8 early in the second half before the Cards regained control, using a pair of 3-0 runs to open leads of 11-8 and then 14-10 in the fourth quarter. The Yellow Jackets didn't waver and used a 5-0 run to try and tame the home crowd, vaulting in front on a Ben Kubiak goal with 4:31 on the clock.

That score remained the same down the stretch as the Cards came up empty on a pair of man-up situations before Dziewit's heroics. His game-winner occurred with 28 seconds left after taking a pass on the left side from Sanfillipo and roping a shot to beat the goalie upper 90.

Dziewit had a game-high six goals while Chandler Swartz (2G, 2A) had a four-point day. Sanfillipo and Drew McDonald each recorded a hat trick while Roman finished 20 of 32 at the faceoff X. He led all players with nine ground balls.

Niemi had 10 saves in the cage and in a game that saw 88 combined shots between the schools. Chad Steinwachs and Derek Andrews both contributed six points for the BW offense.