Liberty University Club Sports
North Carolina State University
Flames ride out storm, surge past Wolfpack with seven unanswered goals
2/12/2023 6:04:54 PM | Men's Lacrosse
Playing in a wintry weather conditions, with gusty winds and sporadic rain in near-freezing temperatures, Liberty University’s men’s lacrosse team was unfazed in Sunday afternoon’s showdown with North Carolina State at the Liberty Lacrosse Fields. The Flames (2-0) overcame the elements and a comeback bid by the Wolfpack (2-1) by netting the game’s final seven scores in a 17-7 victory.
“It was one of our coldest games, but we kind of had to put that aside and get our offense rolling,” said graduate midfielder Cameron Carter, who scored two of the Flames’ first three goals and added two second-half assists. “We’ve just got to go in and play through our systems and play to our standards. The biggest thing was just possession for us. We were struggling picking up the ball, so as soon as we got the ball on our sticks and held onto possession, our game plan was just to kind of kill the clock and die the game down.”
The brothers duo of graduate attack Cooper Branham and freshman attack Luke Branham netted four goals apiece and Luke Branham added four assists while junior attack Braden Landry and sophomore midfielder Will Geary both scored hat tricks and Landry distributed two assists. Clinging to a 10-7 lead, the Flames weathered a man-down situation before extending the edge to 11-7 on a critical goal after a timeout, with Geary receiving a pass up top and making a nice move through the box before bouncing a shot inside the left post.
“We had a slow start, but once our guys got warmed up and our sticks got warmed up, we were ready to go,” Geary said. “Something we’ve been doing all (year) is overcoming adversity and that showed here in this game. When they started to make that comeback, we just needed to calm down and the biggest thing was to maintain possession and get good shots. That’s what we did, right when we came out of that timeout. We drew the slide and we came out and got a great shot. None of our shots were super fast today, we were just focused on accuracy and placement.”
Early in the third quarter Luke Branham fired heat-seeking missile of a shot from near the top of the box set up by his older brother to put the Flames up 10-5 before sending a crossing pass into Landry for a point-blank finish right in front. Later, Luke Branham capped the third-quarter scoring by putting away a pass from junior middie Keaton Mohs to make it 12-7 before Mohs started the 5-0 fourth-quarter flurry by netting a turnaround shot from the middle off an assist from Carter. With 5:28 to go, Geary received a pass from Landry and launched a submarine shot from the top of the box to stretch Liberty’s lead to 15-7.
Graduate midfielder Ethan Bohannan won 17 out of 26 faceoffs and had seven ground-ball pickups to tie senior middie Remy Newton for the team lead while Mohs added five and senior defender Ryan O’Connor four.
Junior goalie Eric Warnstrom made 12 saves and the Flames were successful on 15 out of 18 clearing attempts and 14 out of 22 rides against the Wolfpack, which had edged Temple, 8-7, on Saturday.
The Flames, ranked No. 6 in the MCLA preseason poll, nearly matched the score from Friday’s 19-7 season-opening triumph over Temple, but now must prepare for a much stiffer test from No. 4 Virginia Tech on Saturday at 1 p.m. back at the Liberty Lacrosse Fields.
“These last two games, our offense was rolling right away and that was huge,” Carter said. “We’ve got to flip the script right now and at Monday’s practice set the focus on Virginia Tech because they’re going to be a tough, tough opponent and a true test for us to see where we are.”
The Hokies dominated Liberty in their fall scrimmage in Blacksburg, Va., winning 16-7.
“(Virginia Tech) handled us really well out there,” Carter said. “It was not a good performance by us, but we were missing Keaton Mohs, who is a big part of our team and we didn’t even have all of our lines situated. We were out of order in that game, so we’re a lot more prepared now. Having two games under our belt, we’re definitely up to speed.”
“Virginia Tech will be our whole focus this week, so we’ll be ready,” Geary added. “That will be the toughest team I think we’ll play all year. This is the hardest strength of schedule I think our team has ever had, so it will show our true character at the end of the season.”
By Ted Allen/Staff Writer; Video by Patrick Strawn/Club Sports Director of Video & Media
