ADRIAN, Mich. – The battle for the No. 3 seed for the MIAA men's lacrosse conference tournament is up for grabs between the Adrian College men's lacrosse team and Trine University. The Bulldogs and the Thunder are set for the regular season finale on Tuesday night to see who heads to No. 2 Albion College for the first round of the conference tournament or No. 1 Hope College.
The Bulldogs come in with an 11-4 record on the year and sit 3-2 in MIAA play. Adrian defeated Kalamazoo, Alma, and Calvin to begin the MIAA season with a 3-0 record, but have fallen in its last two battles to Hope and Albion.
Trine has done similar things this season in conference play defeating Alma and Calvin while losing to Albion and Hope. The Thunder come into the week with an 8-3 record on the year and sit 2-2 in conference with Adrian and Kalamazoo left to play.
On the season, the Bulldogs have outscored opponents 201-121.
Chris French leads the team with 63 points on 38 goals and 25 assists to also lead the team in both categories.
Michael Jonas has racked up 36 goals on the year with 23 assists for 59 points followed by 27 goals and 24 assists for 51 points from
Peyton Gasche.
On the defensive end for Adrian,
Cameron Reed leads the team in caused turnovers with 31 on the year to go with 42 ground balls.
AJ Hayes has recorded 17 caused turnovers and Jonas has added 13.
On the faceoff this season,
Max Leventis has had a phenomenal year so far with a faceoff winning percentage of 73.2% with 235 wins. Leventis also leads the team with 158 ground balls. Leventis continues to sit towards the top of the leaderboard in the country in faceoff percentage sitting fifth and coming in in 27
th in ground balls.
Trine's defense this season has been solid only allowing 87 total goals on the year, but the offense hasn't been too productive with scoring just 107 goals. Trine's scoring is led by Noah Markus and Matt Zenichelli each with 20 goals on the season while Andrew Douglas comes into the week with 18.
With a win tonight, the Bulldogs will lock up the No. 3 seed for the MIAA conference tournament. With a loss, the Bulldogs will fall to the No. 4 seed, but still qualify for the playoffs. Tuesday's game is set to begin at Trine University at 7:00 PM.
