TOWSON, Md. – Senior attackman Curtis Dickson, the Colonial Athletic Association Player of the Year, scored five goals as second-seeded University of Delaware (10-6) captured the CAA championship with a 12-9 upset victory over top-seeded and 20th ranked Towson University (7-8) in the CAA title game at Johnny Unitas® Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Dickson, who scored two goals in the fourth quarter to end a Tiger comeback, became Delaware's career leader in goals when he tallied his fifth goal with 10:52 left in the fourth period. His 162nd career goal enabled him to surpass Randy Powers, who scored 161 goals in his career from 1983 to 1986.
With the victory, Delaware earns the CAA's automatic berth in the NCAA Division I Tournament. The tournament field will be announced on Sunday evening, May 9. The Blue Hens will take a season-high five-game winning streak into the NCAA Tournament.
For the Blue Hens, it marked their second CAA championship and it also marked the second time that Delaware has won the CAA championship game at Unitas Stadium. In 2007, Delaware edged Towson by 10-7 at Unitas Stadium.
“Congratulations to Delaware and good luck to the Blue Hens in the playoffs,” Towson Coach Tony Seaman said. “It seems like it's been that way for us all year with close games and going right to the end. We were fortunate to win four of them and I would have traded any one of those games for the game today.”
Delaware, which avenged an earlier 9-7 loss to Towson in early April, entered the fourth quarter with a 9-4 lead but had to hold off a furious comeback by the Tigers.
With 14:04 left in the fourth quarter, sophomore attackman Stephen Norris scored an extra-man goal off a pass from senior midfielder Brock Armour to cut the Tiger deficit to 9-5.
With 12:08 remaining, graduate student midfielder Christian Pastirik pulled the Tigers to within 9-6 when he tallied an extra-man goal off a pass from senior midfielder Will Harrington.
Just 18 seconds later, Harrington scored another extra-man goal off a pass from junior attackman Tim Stratton, narrowing the Blue Hens' lead to 9-7 with 11:50 remaining.
Moments later, Dickson scored a critical goal from 15 yards away to halt the Tigers' scoring run and give Delaware a 10-7 advantage. With 10:52 remaining, Dickson's fifth goal of the game upped the Blue Hens' lead to 11-7.
But, the Tigers kept clawing their way back. With 10:20 left, an unassisted goal by sophomore midfielder Carl Iacona trimmed the Towson deficit to 11-8. When Norris scored another extra man goal off a pass from Stratton with 7:01 remaining, Delaware's lead was cut to 11-9.
However, Delaware won the ensuing faceoff and held the ball for the next few minutes. When the Tigers finally got the ball back, junior goalkeeper Noah Fossner made a great save on a shot by Pastirik. With two minutes left, Fossner made his biggest save of the game. After a Delaware turnover in its own end, Stratton had a great scoring chance on the edge of the crease. After two fakes by Stratton, Fossner made a save on his point-blank shot, keeping Towson from cutting its deficit to one goal.
After the Tigers pulled their goalkeeper to double team the Blue Hens, junior midfielder John Austin scored into an empty net to give Delaware an insurmountable 12-9 advantage with 1:05 left.
The Blue Hens grabbed a 1-0 lead midway through the first quarter when Austin scored an unassisted goal.
Seeking their fourth CAA championship, the Tigers came right back and dominated the rest of the first period as they scored three unanswered goals to build a 3-1 lead entering the second quarter. Sophomore attackman Matt Lamon scored the game-tying goal off a pass from Armour with 5:22 remaining in the first period.
With 2:56 left in the opening quarter, freshman attackman Matt Hughes scored an unassisted goal to give Towson a 2-1 lead. With five seconds left in the first quarter, Harrington increased the Tigers' lead to 3-1 when he scored off a pass from Stratton.
If the first quarter belonged to Towson, the second period was all Delaware as the Blue Hens outscored the Tigers by 6-1 in the second quarter. With 11:18 left in the period, junior midfielder Kevin Kaminski tallied an unassisted goal to cut the Blue Hens' deficit to 3-2. With 7:16 remaining in the half, Kaminski scored his second unassisted goal to tie the game at 3-3.
With 4:51 remaining in the first half, Dickson drilled a 15-yard rocket past junior goalkeeper Travis Love to give Delaware a 4-3 lead.
On the ensuing faceoff, freshman midfielder Matt Thomas of Towson was penalized for unnecessary roughness, giving the Blue Hens an extra-man opportunity. With 4:09 left in the half, senior midfielder Martin Cahill took a pass from sophomore attackman Grant Kaleikau and scored an extra man goal to put Delaware up by 5-3.
Just 64 seconds later, junior midfielder Pat Britton pulled the Tigers to within 5-4 when he scored an unassisted goal.
But, it took just five seconds for the Blue Hens to score again. Sophomore Dan Cooney, the Blue Hens' faceoff specialist, won the ensuing faceoff and scored on a fast break to give Delaware a 6-4 advantage. With 2:41 remaining in the half, Dickson scored his second goal of the game to give Delaware a 7-4 lead.
The Blue Hens, who owned a 7-4 lead at halftime, dominated the first half by winning 11 of 13 faceoffs. Delaware also outshot Towson by a 19-13 margin and owned a 20-6 advantage on ground balls.
In the third quarter, Dickson increased the Blue Hens' lead to 8-4 when he scored an unassisted goal with 10:03 left in the period. With 5:55 remaining in the period, freshman defenseman Connor Fitzgerald tallied the first goal of his career when he fired a 12-yard shot past Love on a fast break.
Fitzgerald's goal enabled the Blue Hens to enter the fourth quarter with a 9-4 advantage.
The nation's leading scorer with 73 points, Dickson led the Blue Hens with five goals as he upped his seasonal total to 62 goals, which also leads NCAA Division I. Kaminski and Austin each scored a pair of goals for the Blue Hens.
“Dickson is a tremendous shooter and he has 60 goals this year for a reason,” Coach Seaman said. “I thought we did a good job on him, but he managed to still score goals. There were three times where he had more than one person on him and he was falling down and still managed to score.”
Honored as the CAA Tournament's Most Outstanding Player, Fossner made a seasonal high 16 saves. He was joined on the All-Tournament team by Dickson, Cooney and sophomore defenseman Taylor Burns.
Cooney aided the Delaware cause by winning a season-high 15 of 20 faceoffs and grabbing six ground balls.
Harrington led the Tigers with two goals and one assist while Norris also tallied a pair of goals. Stratton added a career-high three assists for the Tigers, who finished as CAA runners-up for the second year in a row.
Love, a second team All-CAA selection at goalkeeper, made 11 saves for the Tigers.
Harrington and Pastirik represented the Tigers on the All-Tournament Team, along with junior midfielder Peter Mezzanotte. Mezzanotte had six caused turnovers in the Tigers' two CAA Tournament games and ended the season with a CAA-high 30 caused turnovers.
Delaware will be making its fifth appearance in the NCAA Tournament and its first since the 2007 season when the Blue Hens reached the Final Four.
After a 1-5 start to the season against the nation's toughest schedule, the Tigers ended the year by winning six of their final nine games, including five in a row from April 3 to April 24. They won the CAA regular season title for the fourth time in eight years with a 4-1 league record.
“We had a great group of kids this year,” said Seaman, who completed his 29th season as a college coach and 12th year with the Tigers. “They wanted to win this so bad for so many reasons today. They battled back and hung in there until the very end.
“It would have been exciting for these kids to get the chance to go to the NCAA Tournament,” Seaman added. “We won the CAA regular season title with a schedule that I gave them that was very tough to go by.”
CAA Championship Game: University of Delaware 12, #20 Towson University 9
Delaware (10-6) 1-6-2-3 / 12
Towson (7-8) 3-1-0-5 / 9
Goals: DEL – Curtis Dickson 5, Kevin Kaminski 2, John Austin 2, Martin Cahill 1, Dan Cooney 1, Connor Fitzgerald 1; TOW – Will Harrington 2, Stephen Norris 2, Christian Pastirik 1, Pat Britton 1, Matt Lamon 1, Carl Iacona 1, Matt Hughes 1. Assists: DEL – Grant Kaleikau 3; TOW – Tim Stratton 3, Brock Armour 2, Will Harrington 1. Saves: DEL – Noah Fossner 16 (60:00, 9 goals allowed); TOW – Travis Love 11 (58:20, 11 goals allowed), David Edens 0 (1:40, 1 goals allowed). Shots: DEL – 37; TOW – 35. Extra-Man Opportunities: DEL – 2 for 4; TOW – 4 for 7. Attendance: 2,189.
Post-Game Notes:
• The Tigers and the Blue Hens were meeting in the CAA Championship Game for the third time and the visiting team has won each match-up … In 2005, the Tigers edged Delaware by 9-8 on the Blue Hens' home field … In 2007, Delaware returned the favor with a 10-7 victory over Towson.
• The Tigers have played in six of the eight CAA Championship Games since the CAA initiated the men's lacrosse championship in 2003 … The Tigers, who won CAA titles in 2003, 2004 and 2005, are now 3-3 in CAA Championship Games … They have hosted the CAA Championship Game five times in those eight years, including three of the last four seasons.
• Delaware has a 2-2 all-time record in CAA Championship Games with both wins coming at Towson … They also appeared in the 2006 CAA Championship Game and lost by 12-6 at Hofstra.
• The Blue Hens snapped a three-game losing streak to the Tigers with their victory on Saturday … However, the Tigers still lead the all-time series by a 35-24 margin.
• Delaware has now won 22 conference championships in the history of its program.
• The Tigers are now 6-2 all-time in the CAA Tournament when playing as the top seed … Both losses have been against the Blue Hens in the CAA Championship Game.
• The Tigers have a 9-4 all-time record in the CAA Tournament … They have lost three of their last five CAA Tournament games.
• It was the tenth time this season the Tigers have played in a game decided by three goals or less … They had a 6-4 record in those outings, including a 4-1 mark in one-goal games.
• The Tigers matched a season high by scoring five goals in the fourth quarter against the Blue Hens on Saturday … They also had five goals in the third quarter against Massachusetts on Wednesday night in the semi-finals.
• The Tigers had their five-game home win streak snapped … It was their first loss at home since a 15-10 setback against Virginia on March 21 … The Tigers earned six of their seven wins at Unitas Stadium this season.
• The Tigers were held scoreless in the third quarter against Delaware, marking the fifth time they have failed to score in a quarter … They were held without a goal in the fourth quarter against Bucknell on February 27, the first quarter against Loyola (Md.) on March 27 and the first and second quarters against Johns Hopkins last Wednesday night.
• Delaware has won five straight games for the first time since 2008 … During the current five-game win streak, the Blue Hens have defeated four nationally-ranked opponents.
• The Blue Hens improved to 8-0 this season when leading after three quarters.
• Harrington ended his career by scoring a goal in 15 straight games … He also posted the 15th multi-goal game of his college career and had 19 multi-point outings.
• Pastirik, who transferred from Cornell prior to the year, tallied a point in all 15 games this year … He also ended the season with a five-game goal-scoring streak … Harrington and Pastirik were the only Tigers who tallied a point in all 15 games.
• Pastirik scored 16 of his 28 goals this season at home … He also led the Tigers with eight goals in the Tigers' three games played during May.
• Stratton posted his tenth career multi-assist game and the 29th multi-point game of his career against the Blue Hens … He will enter his senior season with 49 career goals and 36 assists.
• Iacona extended his goal-scoring streak to seven straight games with a goal against the Blue Hens on Saturday … He scored nine goals along with an assist during the streak.
• Dickson tallied his NCAA-leading 12th “hat trick” of the season and the 27th “hat trick” of his career … He also became the second player in Delaware history to score 60 goals in a single season.
• Dickson scored a goal for the 25th straight game and extended his point-scoring streak to 56 consecutive games with his five-point effort … He has the second-longest point-scoring streak in the nation behind Duke's Max Quinzani, who has tallied a point in 60 games in a row.
• Dickson scored five or more goals for the fifth time this season … He had a season-high eight goals in the Blue Hens' win over Albany on March 6.
• Kaleikau extended his point-scoring streak to 13 straight games with three assists against the Tigers … He has a point in 15 of the Blue Hens' 16 games this season.
CAA All-Tournament Team
Will Manny, Massachusetts
Tom Celentani, Massachusetts
Robert Church, Drexel
Kevin Stockel, Drexel
Will Harrington, Towson
Christian Pastirik, Towson
Peter Mezzanotte, Towson
Dan Cooney, Delaware
Taylor Burns, Delaware
Curtis Dickson, Delaware
Noah Fossner, Delaware - MOST OUTSTANDING PLAYER
