On Saturday, April 29th, 2017, the University of Louisville Men's Lacrosse team won the 2017 Midwest Conference Championship after beating Akron by the score of 12-8, claiming back-to-back championships for the program.
#5 Sam Browning got things going for the Cardinals early, putting them up 1-0 less than 3 minutes into the game. However, Akron would respond and respond strongly!
Akron would dominate the majority of the first quarter, scoring 3 unanswered goals. It didn't make things any better for the Cardinals having #13 Lott roll his ankle and being in excruciating pain the majority of the first half. He was unable to get it taped until the half.
The Cardinals took a timeout late in the first quarter and regrouped. Within 5 minutes we would see goals scored by Cardinals #32 George...
#5 Browning...
and #43 Fuson put the ball into the back of the net as the horn sounded for the half, completely destroying the Akron momentum going into the half.
The second half of play would be all Cardinals. We would see goals by #23 McCauley...
#3 Sims...
#34 Thornewill...
#22 Marrison...
#32 George...
...and #19 Mayer.
Akron was able to fight back defensively, with some great saves by their goalie, but offensively they simply couldn't get anything going. Akron went over 30 minutes of play without a goal (from the 11:47 mark in the 3rd quarter to the final goal of the game with 00:53 remaining in the contest).
Louisville is now 5-0 on the 2017 season when scoring 10 or more goals in a game. The Cards now look forward to Nationals in Annapolis, Maryland, where they will represent the conference and play for the National Title.
#ItsOfficial
Here are some other photographs our photographers captured throughout the contest: