COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – Normally, it is a tale of two halves when it comes to describing games.
Wednesday night for Ursinus, it was a tale of two segments in their win over Franklin & Marshall by a 7-5 score.
The Bears, now 6-1 and 2-0 in league play, were trailing the Diplomats (5-2, 1-1 Centennial) by a score of 3-1 with 11:52 left in the first half when the game was stopped due to lightning in the area.
Sixty-one minutes later, the Bears came out and outscored the Diplomats by a 4-1 margin to tie the score at halftime 4-all. The Bears took the lead for good with a goal with 58 seconds left in the third quarter from junior attack Andrew Bean (Tampa, Fla.).
For Ursinus, junior midfielder Jeff Ocampo (Palm Coast, Fla.) scored four goals, pushing his season total to 24, which is also tops in the Centennial. Bean, junior midfielder Mike Alfieri (Mount Laurel, N.J.) and senior longstick midfielder Ernie Constantine (Bethpage, N.Y.) each had a goal in the win, while four different players: freshman midfielder Ercol Acri (Mechanicsburg), senior midfielder Pat Gillen (Merrick, N.Y.), sophomore LSM Wytch Rigger (Decatur, Ga.) and sophomore attack Brian Weil (Middletown, N.J.) each had assists.
The Diplomats got two goals from junior midfielder Jimmy Wenk, while freshman attack Billy Kempner, sophomore attack Tristan Miller and sophomore midfielder Andrew Setian each had a goal.
The Dips came out on fire, as Miller scored 54 seconds in for a 1-0 lead, followed by a goal from Setian at 13:54 for the quick 2-0 lead. Kempner's goal, his 15th of the season, at 5:23 gave the Dips a 3-0 lead.
Ocampo got the Bears on the board at 3:48, on a Acri assist, cutting the deficit to 3-1.
Following the delay, Ocampo got the Bears back to one at 3-2 with his goal at 10:30. Wenk gave the Dips a two-goal lead at 4-2 at 9:37 left on an assist by junior attack Colin McKew. McKew finished with two assists on the night.
Ocampo got goal number three with 3:13 left on an assist by Rigger, before Constantine scored on a Gillen assist with two minutes left in the half. The Bears took their first lead at 5-4 on a goal by Ocampo with 12:22 left in quarter three. After
Wenk's second goal of the game tied the score at 5-all with 4:34 left in the third, Bean's goal turned out to be the game winner. Alfieri's goal in the fourth quarter with 7:38 left gave the Bears a two-goal margin.
Save for portions of the third and fourth quarter, the game was played in a steady rain and both teams combined for 45 turnovers. For Ursinus, Alfieri had four caused turnovers, while senior LSM Tom Adelsberger (Sea Isle City, N.J.) had three. Sophomore goalkeeper Josh Baker (Randolph, N.J.) had nine saves while scooping up eight ground balls. Freshman midfielder Shawn Caven had seven GBs and was 9-for-16 from the X.
F&M was paced by four groundballs from three different players, sophomore defender Scott Beury, junior defender Freddy Schweizer and freshman defender Josh Kanter. Beury had three caused turnovers. In goal, freshman Cameron Setian had nine saves.
Ursinus heads to nationally-ranked Dickinson on Saturday.