Rough start dooms DePauw University lacrosse against Wooster

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The men's lacrosse team streches before practice on Monday
following their 24-3 loss to Wooster College on Saturday.
After the conference defeat, the Tigers are 1-3
in the North Coast Athletic Conference.
SAM CARAVANA / THE DEPAUW

The Tigers came into Saturday’s North Coast Athletic Conference matchup with the College of Wooster riding high. They had just blown out arch rival Wabash College in the first ever meeting of the programs in lacrosse and had just reached the .500 plateau on the season.

The Fighting Scots made sure that whatever momentum the Tigers had, didn’t make it through Saturday. Wooster roared out of the gates at Reavis Stadium, scoring the first five goals of the game en route to a 14-3 shellacking of the Tigers.

“It’s pretty demoralizing,” sophomore Benton Givens said. “I think we responded pretty well after the first streak they had. We went on a short run, but then they ran away with it.”

Matt Paremelee got the Fighting Scots going early with a pair of goals in the first five minutes. Wooster added three more goals over the span of five minutes to take control.

Givens did his best to keep the Tigers in the game, closing out the first quarter with a goal with less than three minutes remaining to cut the deficit to four.

“It actually wasn’t a set play,” Givens said. “The guy playing defense on me just gave me too much room too close to the goal so I just shot it.”

DePauw University carried some momentum over to the second quarter, as the Tigers scored the first two tallies of the second half on goals from sophomore Sam Alkema and first-year Ben Sherman.

With the score standing at 5-3, Parmelee quickly put a stop to any of the momentum the Tigers were collecting. He quickly answered Sherman’s goal with one of his own only 59 seconds later to reestablish the Fighting Scots’ lead.

After moving the margin back up to three, it was Wooster’s Pat Henderson who put the game away for the Fighting Scots. Henderson scored the final two goals of the first half to make the score 8-3. When play resumed for the final 30 minutes, Henderson got right back at it. He quickly ripped home two more scores in the first three minutes of the third quarter to put the game away.

Parmelee would go on to add one more tally in the third quarter to round out his days scoring at four. Henderson was the star for the Fighting Scots, finishing with six goals on the day. The pair of Fighting Scots who got time in goal were only called upon to make eight saves.

For DePauw, first-year goalie Jack Musto recorded 22 saves in the loss, including seven in the final quarter of play.

“I think I had around 60 percent saves so that's not bad,” Musto said. “They were a very good team and I did the best I could and so did my teammates.”

The loss drops the Tigers back under the .500 mark to 5-6 on the season and to 1-3 in conference play. On the other side, the win moves the Fighting Scots to 8-4 overall and across the .500 mark in NCAC play to 3-2.

Now the Tigers face a challenge as they begin to wrap up their season. The Tigers poor record away from Reavis Stadium [2-4] will be challenged, as they play three of their final four games away from home.

“Well with the remainder of our games being conference games, I think we'll be playing with a little more of a chip on or shoulders because these games are huge for us as a program and we know they're gonna be tough games but we're all excited and ready to put in the work to get some wins on the road,” sophomore Dan Kantor said.

DePauw now embarks on a two game trip that will take them to Wittenberg University and Hiram College. DePauw’s matchup with Wittenberg is scheduled for Wednesday evening, with the action getting underway at 4 p.m.