The Mustangs bring the D-III men's lacrosse Walnut and Bronze back to the state of Maryland. Stevenson athletics photo

By Brian Falzarano
D3sports.com

PHILADELPHIA — Fortunately for the Stevenson men's lacrosse team how it started, and most importantly how it finished, ultimately helped the Mustangs overcame a mid-game malaise that almost cost the Mustangs their first NCAA Division III men's lacrosse championship.

• Interview: Stevenson's Mark Panneton
• Interview: Stevenson's Dmitri Pecunas
• Interview: RIT coach Jake Coon
• Interview: RIT's Kyle Aquin
• Stevenson postgame news conference
• RIT postgame news conference
• Dave McHugh's title-game wrapup

Instead, an inspired start to the fourth quarter that mirrored the game’s quick beginning enabled Stevenson to stage a wild celebration that spread across the Lincoln Financial Field grass Sunday evening, the exclamation point at the end of the wildest, most back-and-forth battle in a weekend full of them.

Before 22,511 — the fourth-largest crowd to witness a Division III men's title contest — the Mustangs scored five goals within 3:29 to start the fourth and final quarter, ultimately earning just enough separation to turn back Rochester Institute of Technology, 16-14, in a matchup of first-time championship-game participants.

“When we started the fourth quarter there, I just was trying to tell everyone and coach was trying to tell everyone to stay calm,” said senior midfielder Nick Rossi, who finished with two goals and two assists. “We had been in that situation before, and towards the end of the year we kind of excelled in those situations, keeping our composure and making plays when we needed to make plays. That's something coach (Paul Cantabene) has stressed all year and I thought we did that again today.”

Across the middle two quarters, the Mustangs (22-2) managed just four goals while mostly imploding in the third period. A grand total of 11 infractions whistled against them enabled RIT (19-3) to outscore Stevenson 7-1 in that frame, with several tallies coming as the Tigers utilized a one- or even two-man advantages. Sophomore midfielder Kyle Aquin did the most damage, producing four of his championship-game-record-tying seven scores within the period to stake his team to a 13-10 lead entering the final quarter.

“Anytime you get a team going on a 7-1 run, you're not doing things the right way,” Cantabene said. “So we struggled there a little bit, but we handled it.”

Even with their largest lead, RIT senior defender Elliott Cowburn recalled thinking, “We definitely don't want to be too content on defense.” Because, to a man, the Tigers knew the version of the Mustangs that dominated the first quarter by scoring five goals on their first six shots inside of only 5:37 could quickly re-emerge.

“One of the great parts about playing at Stevenson is we don't call a whole lot of plays; we just let our guys play within our formation, play within our sets and a pure motion style offense really,” Cantabene said. “And those guys really just took it upon themselves to win this game. I give them a lot of credit.”

Surely enough, over the first 3:29 of that fateful final quarter, Stevenson found the back of the cage five times: Michael Crowe and Most Outstanding Player Mark Pannenton (five goals) scored 28 seconds apart to pull within 13-12 with 13:30 remaining, Nick Rossi and Glen Tompkins found the back of the cage 29 seconds apart to make it 14-13 with 12:05 left, and then 34 seconds later Pat Candon deked his defender and lasered home a no-look shot from 20 feet out on the right flank to make it 15-13.

“They definitely did make a great run in the third quarter after halftime and we knew that was going to happen,” said Pannenton, a sophomore who finished with 62 goals. “We knew that both teams were going to go on their own separate runs here in the game and this game was definitely up and down, but I think we just rallied up and really showed some heart there in the fourth quarter and just showed how much we wanted this one today.”

Said Cowburn: “We knew they were going to go on their runs. Unfortunately, going into the fourth quarter they made their big run. We had a couple of lackadaisical shifts on defense and we paid for it.”

Stevenson became just the third Maryland-based school (Washington College and Salisbury being the others) to win a national championship, doing so in the first-ever title contest that matched two first-time participants. Moreover, the Mustangs established a school record with their 22nd victory, the last one delivering their athletic department its first national crown.

“It makes it that much better that it's Stevenson's first one and the first one for coach,” Pannenton said. “We're all extremely excited and extremely proud of everyone on the team.”