Old Westbury, N.Y. — The NYIT men's lacrosse team is headed to the East Coast Conference championship game.
The sixth-ranked Bears rallied from a halftime deficit to defeat LIU Post, 9-7, on Wednesday in a semifinal matchup at President's Stadium.
NYIT now faces 13th-ranked Mercy on Saturday at 3 p.m. at LIU Post for the title.
The Bears defeated Mercy, 16-11, in Dobbs Ferry last Saturday to cap an undefeated run through the ECC regular-season schedule and earn the top seed in the league playoffs.
"I don't think too many things are going to change from last Saturday to this Saturday," coach Bill Dunn said. "So we're expecting a dogfight."
Said Hughes: "It's going to be nothing different. It's a great club. It's going to be a lot of intensity, but it's going to be less of a bus ride. We're going to be closer to home. So we expect to come out with a lot of intensity in the first half and bring it right to them."
Trailing 5-4 at halftime against the Pioneers, the Bears rattled off the next four goals to surge to the lead. Tom Hughes scored the equalizer 72 seconds into the third quarter. Hughes also produced the go-ahead goal midway through the period when he bolted to the net and scored unassisted. Goals from George Schultz and Matt Murphy staked the Bears (13-3) to an 8-5 lead entering the fourth quarter.
The Pioneers (8-8) pulled back within 8-7 with 4:13 remaining on a goal by Austin Guerrina. However, LeRoy Halftown answered with 1:10 to go to restore a two-goal cushion.
"I'm a fifth-year senior. I have a lot of experience out there," Hughes said. "When I hear from coaches that it's good to go to the net, I've just got to keep pushing and find my shots. It was a little sloppy in the first half, and it's always good to finish out on top."
In a matchup between the teams in Brookville on April 1, the Bears took a two-goal lead into the final minute of regulation, but the Pioneers forced overtime with goals from Dylan Harned and Dan Foley. NYIT then won with a sudden-death overtime goal from Will Kistinger.
This time, there was no such drama as the Bears ran out the clock.
In the semifinal matchup, NYIT repeatedly lost faceoffs and possession and found itself on the defensive in the first half. But the Bears turned the game around after halftime.
"On Saturday, we were also down by three goals against Mercy," Hughes said. "We just kept saying, 'We've got to keep pushing, get the ball in the net, stop them on defense, and we'll just be able to finish it out from there.'"
Hughes finished with three goals. Schultz and Halftown had two apiece.
"We talked at halftime about the desire that we need to pick up a ground ball," Dunn said. "And we made it pretty clear to them if we didn't pick up the ground balls, if we didn't get possession, we weren't going to score too many goals. The guys took it to heart. We came out and won more faceoffs. And you saw what happened."
Provided by the NYIT Sports Information Department.
