No. 12 Men's Lacrosse sings second, downing Navy 13-8

By Army Athletic Communications Date: Tuesday, Apr 16, 2024 Time: 2:30 EST
The No. 12 ranked Army West Point men's lacrosse team won a thrilling 13-8 game on April 13 over archrival Navy in the "Star" Series presented by USAA in front of the largest men's lacrosse crowd in D1 this season. Approximately 10,400 people packed Michie Stadium for the final time in the 2024 regular season. (Photo provided by Army Athletic Communications)

The No. 12 ranked Army West Point men's lacrosse team won a thrilling 13-8 game on April 13 over archrival Navy in the "Star" Series presented by USAA in front of the largest men's lacrosse crowd in D1 this season. Approximately 10,400 people packed Michie Stadium for the final time in the 2024 regular season.

The Black Knights got it going early and often racing out to a 3-0 lead behind goals from Bailey O'Connor, Evan Plunkett and Jackson Eicher. 

Navy scored its first goal with 25 seconds left in the first quarter. Eicher scored the first goal of the second quarter and his second of the game to make it a 4-1 game. After Navy made it 4-2, the Black Knights rattled off the next three. Gunnar Fellows and Plunkett got the first two and then just five seconds after the Fellows goal, Will Coletti won the ensuing faceoff and sprinted downfield, and fired it home to make it 7-2 Army. Navy would score the next four goals to close out the half with Army leading 7-6.

The third quarter was one of the most entertaining quarters of lacrosse this season and there was a grand total of zero goals scored. Sean Byrne played out of his mind, making nine saves in the third quarter alone. Army forced Navy's goalie Dan Daley to make three of his own in the quarter.

The fourth quarter began with a Navy goal to make it a 7-7 ball game with 11:09 to play. Then enters Paul Johnson. The senior who was an integral piece of last season's magical run has missed all of this season up until today with a nagging injury. With the shot clock dwindling, Ryan Sposito had a beautiful skip pass to Johnson to shoot it underhanded right under the Navy keeper to put Army up 8-7.

After that, the Midshipmen thought they had the game-tying goal, but a Coach Joe Alberici challenge gave Navy a crease violation leaving the Johnson goal as the game-winner.

The floodgates opened after that. A 5-0 run by the Black Knights behind the Johnson goal, two from Fellows, one from Reese Burek, and one from Plunkett gave Army a commanding 13-7 lead with just 4:08 seconds left. A Navy goal cut it to 12-8 but then Eicher put the exclamation point on an amazing day securing his hat trick to put Army up 13-8 with 30 seconds left.

Byrne tied his career high, which he set two weeks ago, with 19 saves to guide Army to the win. Coletti went 13-24 at the faceoff x and scooped up eight ground balls to go along with his goal.