COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – Ursinus men's lacrosse junior attack Bobby McClure continued his hot stretch of scoring, tying a single-game school record with six goals - all in the first half - of a convincing 16-7 win over Eastern at Patterson Field.
With much more spring-like weather, the newly-minted 9th-ranked Bears cruised in the last non-conference contest of the season to move to 6-0, their best start since 2010.
McClure's six first-half goals and two assists for the game sparked the Ursinus offense. He tied five other Ursinus players who've scored six goals in a game and scored one more than his previous high of five goals on a couple occasions.
Aside from McClure, senior Peter DeSimone tallied two goals to give him 100 for his career. DeSimone is second in program history behind Dane Mangin '08, who has 110. DeSimone's five total points also moved his total to 153 and put him all alone in third place all-time at Ursinus.
DeSimone got the scoring started less than a minute into the game. His low shot found the twine for his 99th of his career.
McClure scored his first goal of his historic game less than two minutes later. The scoreboard was quiet until McClure tickled the twine again 10 minutes later. Senior goalkeeper Nick Kirk kept Eastern (2-4) from scoring in the first quarter as they fired shots left and right of him. The Bears looked solid in front of Kirk while he made nine saves in the win.
In the second quarter, 11 combined goals were scored. The Eagles got their first on a man-up situation when Trenton Ashton received a pass from Colin Piper behind the cage a few minutes into the second. Ashton led the Eagles with three goals and an assist. Eastern followed minutes later with another man-up goal after a wild sequence. A shot was blasted off the cross bar then scooped up by Kyle Mulrane, who found Matt Auletti for a blast to get within 3-2.
McClure's third goal started a three-goal spurt. Sophomore faceoff specialist Aiden Baltz won a faceoff and McClure found the back of the net. Baltz dominated again at the X, winning 18 of 26 attempts and matching his season high with 13 ground balls for the second game in a row.
McClure fell down and regathered to fire one in to go up 5-2 halfway through the second, and junior Sam Mutz scored from a pass from senior Sam Isola to make it 6-2.
Eastern ended the run by the Bears with a goal of their own, then sophomore Hakan Atillasoy lit the lamp on a feed by DeSimone. Atillasoy ended the day with a hat trick and two helpers.
With under two minutes to go before halftime, Mclure's notched his fourth goal from Atillasoy, who then delivered a beautiful wrap-around goal. McClure's sixth came with 1:22 to go in the second quarter.
To keep the score 10-4 at halftime, Kirk made a diving save from close range to stone Eastern.
Out of intermission, the Bears scored twice to stretch their streak to five unanswered goals bridging intermission. Atillasoy scored his third of the game from McClure. DeSimone fired in his 100th goal of his career at the 11:13 mark of the third quarter from Atillasoy.
Sophomore Joe Mercurio then joined in the scoring from McClure.
Senior Sam Isola scored the first of his two goals, the second of which opened the fourth quarter scoring. The first Isola marker was a pass that deflected off a defender and into the back of the net for a fortuitous tally.
Eastern's Ashton's picked up his third of the game, but freshman Eric Bauer ripped his first career shot on goal shortly after getting into the game and it found the back of the net for his first goal to put the Bears up 16-6.
Eastern scored the final goal of the game with under eight minutes to play.
The Eagles' keeper Brett McDonald stopped 12 shots in the cage
Ursinus owned the ground ball department (47-27) and held a 48-42 edge in shots, though the Bears put many more on target.
Ursinus opens Centennial Conference play in 10 days at perennial national power No. 11 Gettysburg on Saturday, March 23 at 1 p.m.