COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The Ursinus Men's Lacrosse team opened its spring break trip to Colorado Springs with a 15-11 win over Illinois Wesleyan on Friday afternoon at Colorado College.
 
 
With the win, the Bears improved to 2-4 overall as they started their first of two games out at Colorado College this weekend. Meanwhile, the Titans fell to 6-2 overall.
 
 
Illinois Wesleyan struck first 58 seconds into the contest to go up 1-0 and junior Harry Sweitzer answered at the 12:33-mark to tie the game at one. The Titans scored back-to-back goals in a 1:03 minute span and took a 3-1 lead before first-year Daniel Rice cut the lead down to 3-2 with his first goal of the game. The Titans used back-to-back tallies again to extend their lead to 5-2 at the 2:09-mark of the first quarter, but the Bears scored a pair of goals of their own in the final minute from sophomore Jared Laskin and junior Chris Bryant to make it a 5-4 game headed into the second. The Titans got the first goal of the second quarter to go back up two at 6-4 with 9:58 left until halftime. However, the Bears locked down Illinois Wesleyan the rest of the quarter and scored three straight goals to hold a 7-6 lead at the half. Rice got the run started at the 7:57-mark after getting a feed from Laskin behind the net and Sweitzer tied the game nearly two minutes later. Rice struck again at the 2:23-mark that gave Ursinus its first lead of the game.
 
 
The Bears continued their run into the third quarter as they added a pair of goals from Laskin and Sweitzer to go up 9-6 at the 11:29-mark. The Titans snapped their 17+ minute scoreless drought with a goal that made it 9-7 at the 6:29-mark to only be answered by senior Ryan Dever 39 seconds later to make it 10-7. Junior Barrett Denlinger responded to another Titans goal to give Ursinus an 11-8 lead with 2:44 left in the third quarter. The Titans got a goal 49 seconds into the fourth quarter that made it 11-9 to only be countered once again by back-to-back scores from Rice to give the Bears a 13-9 lead at the 12:34-mark. Ursinus had answers for each of the last two Illinois Wesleyan goals in the fourth quarter as junior Lars Homan scored the Bears 14th goal before Laskin concluded the scoring.
 
 
Ursinus held a 59-38 shot advantage for the game and a 32-22 edge in shots on goal. The Bears maintained a 30-24 advantage in ground balls plus a decisive 23-7 edge in faceoff wins behind junior Nils Updale going 18-of-24 and senior Dominic Nottoli winning all five of his faceoffs. First-year goalkeeper Colin Daroch earned the win with 11 saves in the full 60 minutes for the Bears and Titans goalkeeper Colin Tervo suffered the loss despite making 17 saves in the full time. Laskin had a career day for the Bears with seven points behind four goals and three assists. Rice recorded a career high five points on four goals and one assist while Sweitzer tallied a trio of scores.
 

The Bears return to action on Sunday, March 16th as they will face the host Colorado College at 2:00 p.m.