Trailing 9-7 entering the fourth quarter, the Belmont Abbey men's lacrosse team outscored Queens 3-2 in the final 15 minutes to cut the deficit to one, but the Crusaders could not get the tying goal as the Royals held on for an 11-10 win this afternoon at Alumni Field. Queens moves to 2-1 overall and 2-0 in Conference Carolinas, while Abbey is 1-2 overall and 0-1 in Conference Carolinas. All three Abbey games have been decided by one goal, with two of those contests ending up with 11-10 scores.

With 1:21 left in the contest and the Abbey trailing 11-9 and down a man, Matt Spivey forced a Royals turnover and sailed a long pass to Josiah Nash, who fired a shot past Brandon Macknew to cut the lead to one. His score came with 1:07 on the clock.

After an Abbey timeout, Jonathan Wolcott won the faceoff and the Crusaders called another timeout. After the stoppage, the Abbey set up its offense. With 23 ticks left, Ryan Corrigan let fly a shot from the left flank that Macknew stopped. An Abbey penalty occurred at the end of the play to give Queens the ball, but Wolcott forced a turnover deep in his own end with four seconds left. Wolcott sailed a pass the three-quarters of the way down the field, but Macknew intercepted it and ran out the clock.

The Abbey outshot Queens 36-30 as Nick Boylan led the Crusaders with three goals. Brendan Rogers added two, while Nash, Corrigan, Tanner Scharr, Dan Morrissey and Brian Watson all had one. Watson's tally was an over the shoulder marker with 5:51 left in the half. Boylan, Corrigan, Morrissey and Scharr all had one assist.

Queens had two players score two goals, as B .J. Leighton and Brian Rose both scored twice. Matthew Michael, David Weise, Travis Speer, Alex Wesenberg, T.C. Whaley, Joe Taylor and Jimmy Baker all had one. Michael finished with two assists, while Leighton and Weise both had one.

Macknew made 14 saves, while Tony Kikola stopped 12 shots. Queens won the face-off battle 15-8 as Taylor won nine in 15 tries. Mike Delallo won six of eight.

Queens scored the first two goals of the game before the Abbey roared back with three straight on tallies from Boylan and two from Rogers. Queens answered with two to close the first quarter leading 4-3. Both teams scored twice in the second quarter, as the Abbey scored the first and last goals sandwiched around two from the Royals, who led 6-5 at the break.

The Royals outscored the Crusaders in the third quarter by a 3-2 count, but the Crusaders battled back in the fourth. A goal by Baker was answered by Boylan to close the Queens lead to 10-8. A goal by Weise at the 6:31 mark moved the Royals advantage back to three, but the Abbey began its comeback with two unanswered goals, the first a man-up goal by Corrigan on a Boylan assist with 4:03 left, and the last by Nash at 1:07.