Round Rock, Texas - Don't Stop Believing. Or scoring goals apparently.
The journey for this Concordia University Irvine men's lacrosse team now includes multiple records after the Golden Eagles registered a ground-breaking 25-10 win over Liberty on Thursday in the MCLA D1 National Semifinals.
CUI broke the record for most goals in a MCLA playoff game with 25 tallies. But that's not all.
Chad McFadden made an impact early on and started racking up goals off some sweet assists from teammates. He finished with a record-breaking 10 goals - which are the most by any one player in one playoff game in MCLA D1 history. At the MCLA D2 level, the record is 11 goals in one game.
"The boys are starting to believe what we've been telling them the whole season," explained CUI head coach
Jesse Foss. "Play smart, tough and disciplined. They are finding their confidence at the right time."
McFadden was part of a second quarter barrage of goals as CUI opened up a 10-3 lead and was up 11-5 at halftime.
"Chad was the recipient of a lot of great passes and plays and is awesome in that role for us," added Foss.
Speaking of excelling in your role, face-off specialists
Cade Poe and
Tristan Keyser dominated on the field. Keyser was a perfect 9-for-9 in the face-off X while Poe won an astounding 22 of 26 opportunities.
Drew Buckley helped the offense as well by cashing in for five goals himself.
Eric Obispo added two goals and three assists.
Daniel Yang started the game in net and collected eight saves while
Ryan Richters helped finished the deal between the pipes. The backups contributed as well down the stretch after the lead got out of hand.
The win is CUI's third in four days at the tournament and brings them just one more win away from clinching a national championship.
The championship game has also been moved up a day to Friday to avoid an incoming rain storm that is expected to hit the Round Rock, Texas area very hard this weekend. MCLA officials decided to move up the game to assure the teams are able to compete before the heavy rain arrives.
CLICK HERE to read more about that MCLA decision to move up the two championship games
The #RevengeTour continues as CUI gets ANOTHER rematch with a nationally-ranked team they lost to earlier this year.
It will be No. 7 seed Concordia and top-seeded Virginia Tech for all the marbles on Friday, May 12 at 5 p.m. PT (7 p.m. local Central Time)
Concordia has competed at the MCLA D1 level since the 2018 season, after the 2017 team won the most recent National Championship in school history - the 2017 MCLA D2 title in men's lacrosse.
CLICK HERE for updated CUI men's lacrosse schedule
