The Ohio State men’s lacrosse team won its matchup against Jacksonville, 9-6, in the Moe’s Southwest Grill Classic in Jacksonville, Fla., on Sunday.
OSU’s potent offensive play overcame the return of Jacksonville’s junior goalkeeper Pete DeLuca, improving its record to 2-0 on the season.
OSU senior attacker Logan Schuss dominated against Detroit in the season opener when he recorded a career-high 10 points. Sunday’s matchup saw the goals more spread out as six different players found the back of the net.
Schuss, senior co-captain midfielder Dominique Alexander and sophomore midfielder Jesse King each scored twice as OSU pulled away in the fourth quarter with a comfortable win.
The two goals pushed Schuss’ total points to 12 on the season.
Jacksonville was hoping its defense could keep the game close, a plan that succeeded until fatigue set in late in the fourth quarter.
DeLuca, who was sidelined in the Dolphins season opener, returned with nine saves for Jacksonville and kept the game closer than the final score showed.
Attempting to break a troublesome trend of letting teams outplay them early, OSU came out and doubled up the Dolphins in the first quarter, leading 4-2.
The teams settled down after that point and exchanged goals back and forth, with the Buckeyes’ lead closed to one, 6-5, heading into the fourth and final period.
Three goals then put things out of reach, and saw OSU head home victorious.
Much improved from the first game against Detroit, the Buckeye defense took leaps and bounds toward reaching last season’s level of success, forcing 18 turnovers as junior goalkeeper Greg Dutton made nine saves.
The victory was a welcome one for OSU, which is now heading into the heart of its schedule with tough games against Penn State, Denver, Virginia and Notre Dame in the coming month.
Looking to build on their hot start to the year, OSU is scheduled to take on the Marquette Golden Eagles at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center Saturday at 1 p.m.