The top two seeds of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) men’s lacrosse tournament will meet in a Saturday night showdown for an NCAA automatic berth when No. 1 Albion hosts No. 2 Alma for an 8 p.m. start at the Britons’ Sprankle-Sprandel Stadium.
Top seed Albion (12-4) utilized its defense to score a 14-8 victory over No. 4 seed Olivet on Thursday. MIAA Defensive Most Valuable Player Kyle DeCamp won the face-off 73 percent of the time (18 of 25) as Albion controlled possession for large portions of the contest. The Britons finished with a 54-27 edge in shots.
Olivet’s Logan Krieger scored the first goal of the game at the 11:39 mark before Albion stormed back to take a lead of 5-2. Krieger and Nino Minaudo scored for the Comets to trim the deficit to one before Albion scored the last goal of the half to take a 6-4 lead at the break.
Olivet’s Dakota Badder netted a man-up goal with 12:42 left in the third quarter to make it a one-goal game at 6-5 and to become the program’s all-time career leader in goals. For the game, Badder finished with two goals.
Albion attacker David DiRado scored six goals in the contest and helped the Britons open up the game late in the third quarter. DiRado, Paul Lewis and Zach Hubbell scored in the final 4:16 to extend its lead to 10-6. Olivet never got closer than three goals the rest of the way.
In the other MIAA semifinal, No. 2 Alma (13-4) scored the first four goals of the contest and six of the first seven to put No. 3 Trine (8-6) in a huge deficit en route its first MIAA Tournament championship appearance in program history.
Austen Irrer scored two goals and notched an assist, while Daniel Buchy and Jake Ellens each scored twice to lead the Alma attack. The Scots built a 5-1 advantage after the opening 15 pushed the score to 8-2 with a pair of goals to close the half en route to victory.
The Scots forced the Thunder into 22 turnovers while committing just 10 themselves. Alma defenders were credited with 14 caused turnovers. Ben Luzar led the way with five. Al Lesperance made six saves in net for the Scots.
Trine’s Chris Ward scored his 100th career goal and added an assist in his final game for the Thunder. Nick Maher, Mitch Leahey, Jordan Lelito and Neil Orr goals for the Thunder. Travis Lores made seven saves in net.
