Harrogate, TN - Lincoln Memorial's men's lacrosse battles in the second half to get the 17-13 victory over the Tusculum Pioneers Wednesday evening. 

Tusculum gets the first two goals on the board within five minutes as they score with 14:07 remaining and 11:17 remaining, but Lincoln Memorial responds with a goal a minute later with 10:21 remaining as Jenson Jones scores and Murdoch Bech earning the assist. The back-and-forth scoring begins as the Pioneers add another goal with 7:13 remaining, followed by a Railsplitter goal with 7:05 remaining, with Jones scoring again off of a Brixten McKenzie assist. Tusculum increased their lead by two more goals with 4:04 and 0:07 remaining, but LMU had the last say in the first as McKenzie scored a goal of his own with seven seconds left to decrease the defecit to 3-5 going into the second quarter. 

The Railsplitters tied up the match in the second as Lucas Barsauskas and Shane Psaltis scored their first goals of the match with 11:42 and 6:27 remaining, respectively. Tusculum finished the quarter by taking back the lead as they scored two more goals with 5:03 remaining, and 1:36 remaining, to make the score 5-7 going into halftime. 

Lincoln Memorial came out of halftime fired up, as they went on a 4-goal scoring run, starting not even a minute into the third quarter as Becket O'Shea scored with 14:12 remaining, and Jones (Burdette assist) scored with 14:02 remaining to tie up the match at 7-7. The Railsplitters took the lead for the first time, thanks to Domenico Moscato scoring with 13:19 remaining, and LMU's Jones extended their lead with 11:13 remaining, assisted by Psaltis. The Pioneers responded with one goal at 8:11 remaining, but not before  Lincoln Memorial would continue to apply pressure offensively with three more goals: Moscato with 7:31 remaining, Jones (Burdette) with 7:08 remaining, and Gavin Reid with 6:31 remaining. Tusculum would put one more goal up in the third with 4:23 remaining, but the Railsplitters increased the margin as Psaltis scored with 3:41 remaining (assisted by Jones) and 2:15 remaining to make the score 14-9 with LMU in the lead going into the final frame. 

The Pioneers would start the scoring in the fourth with 12:07 remaining, but Lincoln Memorial followed up with two goals by Jacob Scholz and Reid with 11:19 and 10:16 remaining. Nearly six minutes would go by before the next goal would be scored by Tusculum with 4:24 remaining. Not even a minute later, Lincoln Memorial would add their last goal of the match with 3:47 remaining by Burdette. The Pioneers would then attempt to catch up as they score two more goals with 3:27 and 1:06 remaining, but would not be enough as LMU took the victory 17-13. 

Jones would lead in points with six for five goals and one assist, and Psaltis would follow with four points for three goals and one assist. Burdette finished the evening with three points for one goal and two assists. Reid (2 goals), Moscato (2 goals), and McKenzie (1 goal, 1 assist) would all record two points. O'Shea, Scholz, and Barsauskas would register one goal and Bech would add one assist. 

Jones led in shots and shots on goal with ten and eight, respectively. McKenzie was the team-leader in ground balls with eight, and four different Railsplitters led with two caused turnovers. McKenzie won 23 face offs, and goalkeeper Jayden Herman got the win with a 30% save percentage. 

As a team, Lincoln Memorial took 46 shots, with 30 being on goal, recorded 15 successful clears, 39 ground balls, and 27 won face offs. 

With the win, LMU improves to 4-1 overall and 1-0 in conference play, and Tusculum drops to 4-1 and 0-1 in the SAC. 

The team will continue conference play on Saturday, March 7th as they host Catawba at LMU Lacrosse Complex at 1 pm.