—The top-seeded UMBC Retrievers scored a championship game record 19 goals as they defeated third-seeded Albany, 19-10, to win their first America East Conference Men’s Lacrosse championship. UMBC will now advance to their first NCAA Tournament since 1999.

The Retrievers will face seventh-seeded Princeton in Princeton, New Jersey on Saturday, May 13. The game time has been announced at 12:00. Should the Retrievers advance, they would take on the winner of the Maryland-Denver game at Towson University the following weekend.  

“These guys just came ready to play,” said Head Coach Don Zimmerman. “They believe in themselves…what you saw is a combination of some good talent, but great chemistry and a great attitude. I couldn’t be prouder of these guys.”

Senior attackman Brendan Mundorf scored five goals and added an assist and was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. Junior linemate Drew Westervelt led all scorers with career highs of six goals and nine total points.

UMBC used a 7-1 run to erase a 3-2 deficit in the final 20 minutes of the first half. Westervelt scored an unassisted goal with 4:57 reamining in the first quarter to knot the game at 3-all.After freshman midfielder Alex Hopmann put the home team ahead for good at 4-3 at the 3:27 mark, Westervelt scored his third and fourth goals of the quarter to give the Retrievers a 6-3 advantage after 15 minutes.

Albany’s Frank Reseterits shaved the deficit to 6-4 just 54 seconds in the second stanza, but that was the final goal the Great Danes would score in the half. In fact, UMBC junior attacker Andy Gallagher scored just seven seconds after Resetarits score and Mundorf and Westervelt added second quarter scores to give UMBC a 9-4 halftime advantage.

The Great Danes were unable to score back-to-back goals in the second half as UMBC answered each Albany score with at least one of their own. The Retrievers put the game away with a 3-0 run to build a 13-8 advantage to 16-8 with 13:15 remaining in the contest. Mundorf scored four of his five goals in the second half.

“This is a great conference and very competitive,” said Coach Zimmerman. “What I like is I think our team is peaking at the right time. It is special to go through the league undefeated and it is special because of the competition and the caliber of teams that we face.”

In addition to Mundorf, sophomore face-off specialist Taylor Marino, senior defenseman Justin Berdeguez and freshman netminder Jeremy Blevins were named to the All Championship team. Marino won 18 of 29 draws and garnered a career-best 13 ground balls. Blevins made 11 saves and allowed 9 in 56 minutes of work after making eight saves and permitting a season-low three goals in UMBC’s semi-final win over Binghamton.

Sophomore midfielder Terry Kimener followed up his three-goal, one-assist effort on Friday with two goals and two assists vs. Albany. Gallagher and Hopmann also added a pair of goals for UMBC. Resetarits led Albany with four goals and an assist, while Merrick Thomson scored three times. UA netminder Brett Queener made 16 saves, while allowing 17 goals in 53:22.