St. Ambrose wins 14-2 on Senior Day
Saturday afternoon in Davenport, Iowa, the Bees hosted their Senior Day against Midland University in their last home game of the season. Prior to this match, St. Ambrose honored 10 seniors on the team: Lachlan Hodge, EJ Loggins, James Saracini, Travis Coleman, Jack Wiltrout, Isaac Martinez, Adam Kraft, Dominic Della Vedova, Ian Ban, Johnny Oczko, and Chris Bridich. After a slow start, St. Ambrose took the lead and ran with it, winning the game 14-2.
SAU came into this match winning five straight conference games, and looked to stay hot coming near the end of regular season. Starting slow, the Bees opened up the scoring five minutes into the game with Ryan Swanson dodging down the left alley for a shot and goal on the run. Six minutes later, man down, Eli Hahn pushed transition and found Oczko open on the wing, shooting it low and away for his first career goal. Those two shots were the only ones to find the back of the net, leading to Bees winning 2-0 to end the first.
With a similar start to the first, SAU scored four minutes into the second quarter with Aidan Fergus passing it to Zakary Brown for a fastbreak goal. Thirty seconds later, off a St. Ambrose faceoff win, Hahn took it to the cage and sniped the top left corner. Midland put an end to the SAU momentum scoring its first goal of the game to make the score 4-1. In the final minute of the half, Swanson found Anthony Lyons open in the middle for another Bees goal. That goal put St. Ambrose up 5-1 to end the first half. Hodge was the goalie in the first half and made three saves on four shots.
Martinez started the second half in goal. SAU scored first with Cameron Washington beating his defender at X and taking it to the cage for a goal. Midland shortly followed this up with a goal to bring the lead down to 6-2. St. Ambrose answered with a five-goal run. First, Washington found Ayden Fraelle open for a shot and goal. After playing goalie in the first half, Hodge followed this up with a goal coming from Brown assisting. Hodge scored again with a feed from Washington. Hodge then dodged and found Brown open for another shot and goal. With less than a minute, Washington scored the final goal for the Bees run. That five-goal run put the Bees up 11-2 to finish the third quarter.
To pick up where they left off, Washington scored in the first 15 seconds with Hahn passing it to him off the faceoff win. Twenty seconds after, Washington and Swanson made a connection for a goal. Six minutes later, Hodge running from behind the cage drew the flag off a cross check, beat his defender and stung the top right corner for an electric goal. That was the final goal of the game to get the Bees a 14-2 win on senior day.
With a huge conference win for the Bees, Hodge and Washington led the charge with three goals a piece. Brown and Swanson each put in two goals while Fraelle, Oczko, Hahn, and Lyons each notched one in. Washington was dishing out the ball grabbing three assists on the day while Hahn grabbed two, and Hodge, Brown, Fergus, and Swanson each getting one.
Hodge led the way for the defense making three saves while Martinez made one. Aidan Fergus, Joe Campbell, and Hahn were active on defense causing four turnovers each while Della Vedova tagged on one CT. On the faceoff X, Cleveland Lemus won seven and Wiltrout won two.
This win puts St. Ambrose 7-1 in conference and 7-6 overall. The Bees ranked No. 2 in conference and now on a six game win streak will face off against No. 1 William Penn University in a battle for the top spot in conference and home field-advantage during the playoffs. This will be the Bees final regular season of the game and will be played at William Penn on Wednesday.