Header pic: Zach Rozgonyi – Credit: Florida Tech Athletics
The No 14 ranked Florida Tech Panthers (10-4, 5-1 SSC) closed out their home lacrosse schedule on Saturday with a 14-13 overtime win against the No.12 Florida Southern Moccasins (10-5, 4-2 SSC).
Zach Rozgonyi led the Panthers with a five-point day, with three goals and two assists. He gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead with his 38th goal of the season, breaking the single-season record previously held by Jason Terry. Rozgonyi also set a single-season record for hat tricks later in the game. Collin Stewart ended the day with a hat trick and an assist for a four-point day.
Rozgonyi scored the game-winner in OT, giving him 55 points, and giving him the Panthers’ single-season points record with 55.
Florida Southern was led by Sean Nolan’s five goals and an assist. Jeff Atlas had two goals and two assists.
Following the home finale, the university along with coach Brad MacArthur honored the 14 seniors on the 2022 roster.
Sam Sidari, Griffin Bowie, Ben Claffee, Matt Hill, Cole Marini, Ethan Tosheff, John Hulsman, Sam Balch, Patrick Stewart, Brennan Banks, Josh Vetter, Justin Williams, Matt Gutmann, and Tristan Arias were all honored in their last regular-season appearance in the backyard.
The goalies were a huge part of this game with Hulsman matching his career-high in saves with 18 and Maxwell Freestone made 20 saves for the Moccasins.
Following Rozgonyi’s record-setting goal, Stewart took a feed from Jakob Terpak and gave the Panthers a 2-0 lead with 10:46 left. Stewart made it 3-0 a minute later. Sam Sidari scored his seventh of the season to get the Panthers out to a 4-0 lead with 5:30 to go in the first.
Jay Minor got the Mocs’ on the board with an assist from Nolan. The final 4:55 ticked away and it was 4-1 after one quarter. The Panthers dominated in shots 23-9 in the first quarter. They led 13-5 in shots on goal.
Matt Flammenspeck’s goal made it 4-2 just before seven minutes had expired in the quarter. Patrick Stewart assisted on Bennett Duffy’s goal to make it 5-2 and then Stewart got one of his own three-plus minutes later to boost the Panthers’ lead to 6-2.
Edward May and Jeff Atlas scored 41 seconds apart to pull Florida Southern to within two, 6-4. Nate Deplancke scored with 30.6 seconds left, giving the Panthers a 7-4 lead at the half.
Florida Tech had 36 shots in the first half with 19 shots on goal). FSC took 14 shots, 10 on goal.
Rozgonyi got his second goal of the day 3:10 into the third quarter with the assist coming on a long pass from Hulsman. After a Nolan goal made it 8-5, Hulsman was at it again launching a 70-yard pass to Chandler Hake. He put it home to give the Panthers a 9-5 lead. Hulsman was not credited with an assist on the Hake goal, but his pass needed to be acknowledged.
The Mocs scored three straight goals with Nolan bookending a goal by Lucas Sommers. All of a sudden it was a 9-8 game with 6:12 left. Hake answered with his second of the day to give the Panthers a two-goal lead, but Florida Southern got goals from Andrew Medeiros and Nolan 25 seconds apart, tying the game 10-10, heading into the fourth quarter.
Deplancke scored his second of the day 2:16 into the quarter to give the Panthers an 11-10 lead. Stewart followed that up with his hat trick marker on an assist from Rozgonyi with 8:57 left in regulation.
Florida Southern got back-to-back goals from Nolan and Atlas to tie it at 12 with 6:41 left. Hulsman kept Nolan off the board with his career-high-tying 18th save with 5:50 to go.
Austin Engeler scored his fifth of the season 47 seconds after the save to give the Panthers a 13-12 lead. Brendan Glasser would get the equalizer 52 seconds later, and the defenses played the last 4:11 out. Atlas did take a shot with 4.7 seconds left, but it went high and this game went into overtime.
Kevin Horwitz who had dominated at the faceoff x for much of the day for the Mocs’ was beaten by Jack Maranto to start overtime. Maranto was subbing for an injured Tosheff won the draw that mattered and Rozgonyi scored 47 seconds into overtime, giving the Panthers a huge win.
For more info: FSC @ Florida Tech Box Score
Florida Tech finished with 60 shots 34 of those on goal. The Panthers were 1-for-6 on the man-up and the Mocs’ were 0-for-6.FSC won 22-of-31 faceoffs, and 20-of-21 on clears. They turned it over 21 times, to the Panthers 15. Florida Tech had 13 caused turnovers to FSC’s 4
The Panthers will close the regular season at Rollins on Saturday, April 23. That game will start at 1:00 p.m. Rollins was scheduled to play Saint Leo after the Florida Tech game today, but that game had not gotten underway as this article was published. Rollins went into the game ranked 10th in the country.