Limestone, Tufts take men's lacrosse titles at the Linc

Mike Messenger had four goals and an assist Sunday as Limestone won its second consecutive NCAA Division II championship with a 9-6 victory over Le Moyne at Lincoln Financial Field.

Top-ranked Limestone (20-1) finished the season on a 12-game winning streak but had to come from behind for the title.

The Dolphins (16-3) jumped out to a 3-0 lead before the Saints rattled off three goals of their own to tie the game.

Limestone midfielder Kevin Reisman won 13 of 19 faceoffs, which allowed the Saints to control the game's tempo for most of the day. Messenger, who was named the game's outstanding player, scored three of his goals in the fourth quarter. His third gave the Saints a 7-6 lead they would not relinquish.

"All through the year we've been like a second half team, third quarter, fourth quarter," Messenger, a midfielder, said. "We just knew as a team to keep going, keep pushing. We knew we could get them."

Kevin Kelly and Matt Taylor each scored a pair of goals for the Dolphins.

Defending champion Tufts fell behind early in the Division III title game but recovered to earn its second straight title, routing Lynchburg, 19-11.

Tufts trailed by 4-0 after Lynchburg's Todd Galvin scored the second of back-to-back goals with 6 minutes, 34 seconds left in the first quarter. The Jumbos (21-2) scored 13 of the next 15 goals.

Tufts junior midfielder Conor Helfrich was crucial in the comeback, going 23 for 31 on faceoffs with 13 ground balls and a goal to earn outstanding player honors.

"For me it was win the next faceoff and get these guys the ball," Helfrich said of his teammates. "I knew they would do good things with it if I did that. It was win the next faceoff and get the next ground ball, win the next play."

Tufts did a great job of bottling up lethal junior attacker Austin Stewart. Stewart scored two goals, the first of which broke the NCAA single-season scoring record (107) set by Whittier's Brad Downey in 1996.