Huntingdon men’s lacrosse falls in season opener

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Huntingdon men's lacrosse team battled Birmingham-Southern evenly until midway through the third quarter on Saturday.

But the Panthers pulled away in the final 22 minutes to take a 22-10 victory.

The season-opener marked the second meeting between the second-year Hawks and fifth-year Birmingham-Southern, a NCAA playoff qualifier last season.

"This was a huge test to open the season," Huntingdon head coach Andrew Carey said. "It's pretty awesome to host a 2012 NCAA tournament team on our campus and I thought we hung with them in the first half. I'm not happy with the outcome, but we did some good things and we are going to keep improving. Now we have to get ready for Hendrix and Rhodes next weekend. We're going to go back to work and be ready to play."

The Hawks play at Hendrix on Friday at 7 p.m. and at Rhodes on Feb. 17 at 1 p.m.

Against Birmingham-Southern (1-0), Huntingdon scored seven goals in the first half and trailed 10-9 with 9:05 left in the third quarter. But the Panthers scored four goals in the final seven minutes of the third quarter and three goals in the first three minutes of the fourth quarter to pull away.

Jakob Works scored four goals to lead Huntingdon. Gavin Carey and Anthony Rovetto each scored two goals for the Hawks and Brandon Sewell and Tevin Franks each scored once. Sewell had two assists and Carey had one. Sewell also recorded 13 ground balls.

Goalie Fabien Gutierrez recorded 16 saves.