JACKSONVILLE, Fla.- The Jacksonville men's lacrosse team defeated the Mercer Bears 18-15 in an offensive shootout on Saturday.
 
JU STAT LEADERS
GOALS-Dylan Watson (4)
ASSISTS- Jackson Intrieri (4)
GROUNDBALLS- Nathan Kapp (8)
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Like the weather on Saturday afternoon, both teams came out hot on the offensive end, with four goals in the first four minutes, and seven in the first seven. Mercer opened the scoring one minute into the game, and Nathan Kapp responded off of the face-off just nine seconds later to tie the game. Mercer's face-off man Ashton Wood then mirrored Kapp's goal with a face-off win and score himself. The Dolphins and Bears then split the next six goals, all in the first quarter, to see Mercer up one with just under six minutes to play. Dylan Watson and Jackson Intrieri then found net one minute apart. With five seconds to play Marshall McGuire passed up a shot to find Tom Heed, and Heed, while falling to the ground and draped with defenders, scored with .9 seconds left in the quarter to give JU the two goal lead going into the second.
 
The second quarter saw four total man up goals out of seven scored between the two sides. Mercer scored just a minute into the quarter on the extra man opportunity, and Tucker Garrity responded 15 seconds later to maintain the two goal lead. Jacob Greiner and Max Waldbaum then scored consecutively, only to have Mercer score the last three goals of the half to cut their deficit down to one.
 
In the third quarter, it was the Dolphins turn to come out of the gates firing and Intrieri set up Troy Hettinger for his second goal of the season to give JU the two goal lead back. Mercer then scored two of the next three goals and the game was within one once again. The Dolphins used three unanswered goals from Intrieri, Marshall McGuire and Ibrahim Pio to separate themselves but the Bears went on to score the next four goals of the game and see the score at 15-15 with 12:24 to play.
 
Last week's ASUN player of the week in Dylan Watson then found room in the fourth quarter and found net twice, three minutes apart, to give the Dolphins some breathing room. With five minutes to play, McGuire spun a defender off of him about 40 feet from the cage and found net while being covered with Mercer defenders to give JU an insurance goal and clinch the game.

WHAT THEY SAID

"Winning is hard, especially in the conference," said head coach John Galloway after his teams win. "I have to give a lot of credit to Mercer for their fight for 60 minutes. I felt like we were ready to pull away a few times, and they kept making plays. This game challenged our mental toughness, and also identified some areas we can work on away from the field as we get into the meat of ASUN play."

"Each week, I feel like we are talking about someone new," further added Galloway on what his team will take out of this game. "Today, Marshall McGuire, Tucker Garrity and Jackson Intrieri made highlight reel plays to keep our momentum. We showed signs of fatigue, but then guys answered the call. It was an ugly win, but we learning to win ugly is a skill. We got better at it today."
  
ADDITIONAL NOTES
JU had three players with at least five points in Intrieri, Watson and McGuire.
Watson has recorded at least five points in three consecutive contests.
The Dolphins had 10 players record a caused turnover.
 
UP NEXT
The Dolphins travel north to take on Cleveland State on Wednesday, March 29^th in another ASUN clash.