Wolverines nationally ranked after victory
By Matthew Purucker · News Editor
From a young age, many athletes dream of scoring a game-winner, but few achieve the feat, regardless of the sport.
Senior Grove City attackman Stewart McClain experienced the thrill of that moment after burying an overtime goal to propel the Grove City men’s lacrosse team to a 14-13 victory over No. 19 Ohio Wesleyan Saturday at Robert E. Thorn Field.
“It was super fun to win that game, at home, on a beautiful day. Scoring the goal was the easy part. Rigdon Greene gave me a good pass, and Tyler Blazek set a great seal. My teammates made it a super easy shot; one I’ve made so many times before,” McClain said.
The fourth overtime goal in Grove City men’s lacrosse history came after senior Ohio Wesleyan midfielder Noah Citek committed a pushing penalty 17 seconds into overtime, putting the Wolverines a man up. Twenty-five seconds later, Grove City won.
“I was super confident in all the guys on the field, and when I saw the flag go down, I knew we had to just do our thing. Nothing special, just needed to follow the plan,” McClain said.
Grove City (1-1) trailed 13-12 with 2:41 left in the fourth quarter before senior attack Rigdon Greene buried his third goal of the contest to tie the game and send it to overtime. The last of Greene’s three assists led to the game-winning goal.
“Rigdon Greene played the best game of his career with three goals and three assists, starting in place for an injured teammate. He also caused the turnover in overtime to get us the ball; he played like a senior for sure,” Grove City Head Coach Alec Jernstedt said.
Junior attack Wade Beckstrom paced Ohio Wesleyan (0-1) with 15 shots, three goals and one assist. Senior midfielder Garrett Smith also had three goals off four shots for Ohio Wesleyan.
Grove City outshot Ohio Wesleyan 47-44, but lagged 24-28 in shots on goal. Senior goalie Tyler Gladstone made 15 saves, securing the win, while freshman Jack Hartman had 10 saves in the loss.
“The close defense of Sam Busby, Sam Stevenson and Nate Clark (was) huge. We caused 17 turnovers, and they did a lot of that work. Josh McDermott is an elite defensive midfielder that works so hard,” Jernstedt said.
Greene’s first two goals and goals from freshman midfielder Caden Ryan, junior attack Sawyer Strong and sophomore midfielder Ethan Binns helped Grove City race out to a 5-1 lead with 12 minutes remaining in the first half.
Ohio Wesleyan responded with three straight goals, then McClain scored his first of the game to make it 6-5 Grove City at halftime.
To begin the second half, the Battling Bishops tallied four unanswered goals, jumping out to a 9-6 advantage.
“We didn’t play particularly well, but we are trying to teach the guys to expect mistakes. Our definition of playing well is to handle the mistakes with poise and courage, which we did. Poise to stay focused and courage to keep moving forward. I thought our physical effort was the difference in the game — diving for balls, trying to get hit by shots, running hard in the middle of the field. We were all in with the things we could control,” Jernstedt said.
Grove City then outscored Ohio Wesleyan 7-4 over the final 20 minutes of regulation to force overtime.
The Wolverines’ win was their first overtime victory since an 18-17 thriller over Swarthmore on May 13, 2023, in the second round of the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament. Grove City is now 4-4 in overtime games in program history.
“We want to be a top five team in the country, so obviously beating top 20 teams is the only way to do that. The win is huge in validating the work and the direction of the program. We’ve now beat a top 20 team four of the last five years, so we want to keep building in that consistency,” Jernstedt said.
After steamrolling PAC foe Franciscan 31-8 Tuesday, the Wolverines will face two top five opponents, No. 4 R.I.T. and No. 3 Christopher Newport, Saturday and Feb. 28, respectively. Those games will be two big tests on the road for the NCAA tournament hopefuls.
“The rest of February is a gauntlet. We scheduled those games because we think we can win them. But what I really want to see is improvement every week. Great opponents show you what you’re not good at and how the game can be played, so we need to take something from each week and stack them,” Jernstedt said.
