Piedmont Lacrosse roars to win in season-opener

JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI -- The Piedmont College men's lacrosse team rolled to a 19-10 decision over Millsaps College in Mississippi earlier Saturday taking a win in the 2015 season opener. <br /> <br /> Piedmont has now won its last three season openers with the lone loss in a season opener for PC coming in the debut season of 2012. The Lions are also now 4-0 all-time against the Majors of Millsaps, Piedmont's season opening opponent the last three years running.<br /> <br /> The Lions' attack was flying high with 5 players with 2 goals or more to their name. The attack was led by TAYLOR CARTER with 4 goals and 1 assist, and STEVE BLANCHARD who had 2 goals and 4 assists.<br /> <br /> The Majors have been haunted by Carter the last two meetings with the Lion totaling seven goals in those two contests. His 11 against Millsaps are the most for any Lion against the Mississippi-based institution in the last three matchups. <br /> <br /> At the half Piedmont led the scoring 9 - 7. The Lions out-shot the majors 26-19 forcing 13 saves out of the Majors' goalie Ryan McLean. MICK BAKER only had to make 7 for Piedmont in the half.<br /> <br /> After the half Millsaps scored 2 early solo goals through Simon Sherman. This sent the Lions on a streak of 6 unanswered goals into the 4th period. At the heart of the goals in the 3rd period, Spencer Ortiz had back to back goals after being fouled in the process of scoring the 1st. Ortiz ended the game with 3 goals and 1 assist to his name.<br /> <br /> The Majors got 1 goal back late in the 4th period followed by 3 goals from the Lions to hammer in their second supremacy. JAMES TORRES scored 2 of these, one of which was assisted by Blanchard who then netted the final goal of the contest.<br /> <br /> The main faceoff men were SUMNER GANTZ for the Lions, and Jack Houtz for the Majors. Gantz ended with a FO record of 10 - 26. While Houtz was 10 - 15.<br /> <br /> In goal for Piedmont, Baker played all 60 minutes recording 23 saves. His counterpart for Millsaps also completed the 60 and had 24 saves.<br /> <br /> Up next for Piedmont is another road challenge as the Lions head to Randolph-Macon College for the first time in program history. The contest is set to take place in Ashland, Virginia a week from today, February 14, with a 1:00 pm afternoon start time.

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