LEXINGTON- The Transylvania Men's Lacrosse team has entered the postseason. The Pioneers have earned the #1 seed in the Heartland Collegiate Lacrosse Conference after finishing the regular season 5-0 in conference play, now hosting the Semi-Finals game against Earlham College. The Pioneers are coming into this week after sweeping all major awards for the HCLC as head coach Logan Otto would be name coach of the year, Ben Marcum would be names defensive player of the year, Kade Kruger would be named offensive player of the year, and finally Ben Pund would be named newcomer of the year.

These accolades only fueled the Pioneers in today's route of Earlham, winning 24-1 today. Transylvania has submitted their dominance in the HCLC this season, making this game no different with Transylvania having the highest win margin of the conference. When these two teams met in the regular season, the Pioneers won 21-2. 

The Pioneers would force Earlham to have 46 turnovers on the day, as the Pioneers would directly cause 33 of them. DPOY Ben Marcum would have a season high 6 caused turnovers showing why he received hardware, followed by Malachi Spohn who would have 4 caused turnovers on the day, adding an impressive goal this game to give him his first of the season. Cole Brickley would have a stand out game, earning 3 caused turnovers, and 2 ground balls. The Pioneers would clear a perfect 34-34 this game.
Otto would say: "Ryan Geisler had a fantastic game as a quarterback of our team in addition to the return of Casey Fagan. Lastly, Luke Plummer continues to get to a GBs and create clears for us which is a big part of our success."  

Offensively the Pioneers had to penetrate a solid Earlham zone defense which took the Pioneer offense a quarter to figure out, then took the top off. Four separate players would have a hat trick this game, those are as follows:

• Ryan Geisler, 3 goals, season high 4 assists, 1 ground ball, 1 caused turnover.
• Luke Hinton, 3 goals, 1 ground ball, 1 caused turnover.
• Casey Fagan (return from injury), 3 goals, 2 assists, 1 caused turnover.
• HCLC offensive player of the week Kade Kruger, 3 goals, 3 ground balls, 1 caused turnover.

Thirteen different Pioneers would score this game as the Pioneers took 71 shots to Earlhams 6 shots. The Pioneers would go 25-29 from the face off x, losing 3 due to violation. 
After the win head coach Logan Otto said: "Earlham is clearly a tough team. All their players compete and coach Lanzillo has built a culture there that I think is the foundation of what it takes to level up your program. He has a lot to be proud of. We are grateful for the opportunity to play in the semi finals and now to the championship. We know Hanover is always a tough opponent and we will work to prepare for Saturday."

This win sets up the HCLC Championship game against Hanover College who defeated Anderson today 23-7. The Pioneers beat Hanover in their previous matchup 20-3, as the Panthers are the #2 seed in this tournament. This game will take place Saturday April 27th at 4 PM here at Pat Deacon Stadium.