SAVANNAH, Ga.— In the final regular season contest of the year, the Montreat men's lacrosse team traveled to the SCAD Savannah Bees for an Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) matchup. The squad of Cavaliers surrendered 18 goals and scored two, dropping to 1-11 overall and 1-7 in AAC action for the 2023 campaign.
 
A low-scoring first quarter saw the hosts jump out to a 2-0 lead, registering the opening goal midway through the frame and tallying the second just 1:59 after the icebreaker. SCAD then notched its third score of the contest moments into the second period before Jonathan Gunn finished off a feed from Grayson Scott only 45 seconds after the Bees' goal to pull the Cavaliers within two (3-1) again.
 
The home side collected a pair to move ahead by four (5-1), but Ben Stephenson netted his team-best 27^th goal of the year, a man-down strike with 3:45 on the clock, to bring Montreat within three. Two late scores by the Bees resulted in a 7-2 scoreline at the half. Jay Chance kept the Cavs in the game with 12 first-half saves.
 
SCAD (4-8, 3-5 AAC) then dominated every aspect of the competition in the second half, resulting in a lopsided final. The Bees stung the Cavaliers with a trio of goals in the third to extend their advantage to eight (10-2) with one period remaining prior to saving their best offensive quarter of the matchup for last. Outscoring the visitors 8-0 over the final 15 minutes, the home team poured it on offensively, defeating Montreat by 16 to clinch the sixth spot in the conference tournament and hand the Cavaliers their sixth consecutive loss.
 
Understandably, the Cavs lagged behind in every statistical category, getting outshot 59-18, 38-7 on target, committing 10 more turnovers (28-18), causing 14 less turnovers (19-5), registering 16 successful clears to SCAD's 18, picking up 25 fewer ground balls (39-14) and winning seven of the 25 faceoff opportunities. The lone bright spot for the Cavaliers was Chance's 20 stops in net.
 
The men's lacrosse team now looks forward to 2024 as the Cavaliers failed to make the 6-team AAC Tournament field.