Box | Updated stats
TAMPA, Fla. -- Nazareth used a late fourth-quarter flurry to close the gap Friday against Western New England, but the Golden Bears held on to edge the Golden Flyers in a non-conference men's lacrosse game, 14-12, in a game played at the University of Tampa.

The game was the second of two spring break games for the Golden Flyers, who dropped to 2-4 overall. Western New England improved to 3-3. The Golden Flyers, who defeated UMass-Boston 26-6 on Tuesday, return north to visit Hamilton Wednesday for a 4 p.m. face-off.

Trailing 14-7 after the Golden Bears scored the first goal of the fourth quarter, Nazareth rallied to score five straight goals to make things interesting. Senior Anthony Basile accounted for three of the goals while Matthew Vanliew and Drew McNerney had the others. Basile's third goal came off a pass from McNerney with 2:24 left and closed the gap to 14-12.

Nazareth had chances thereafter, but a shot by freshman Tate Martinez was saved by WNE goalie Sean McCusker with 1:46 to go. Then a holding penalty to Nazareth's Keaton Doon with 1:00 left gave the Golden Bears the ball again. Nazareth was able to force a turnover and called timeout with :42 left, but the Golden Flyers were unable to generate another shot on goal.

In addition to Basile's three fourth-quarter goals, Kevin Hussey scored three times and Vanliew and McNerney twice each. Jack Crowley and Doon also scored goals. Matt Greer and John Shahpazian scored three times each for the Golden Bears.

Nazareth led early on on a first-quarter goal by Vanliew. Western New England countered by scoring seven straight goals to take control early in the second quarter.

That left the Golden Flyers playing catch-up the rest of the way. Second-quarter goals by McNerney, Hussey and Crowley enabled them to close within 9-5 by halftime.

Western New England began to pull away again in the third quarter by scoring four more times. Doon and Hussey scored for the Golden Flyers.

That set the stage for a wild fourth quarter in which Nazareth eventually ran out of time.

Nazareth had a 54-47 edge in shots and face-off specialist Tim Vinton won 17 of 29 draws. Freshman goalie Eric Almquist played well by making 17 saves, a total that was matched by McCusker.

Vinton had nine ground balls and Tristan Gosselin had four. Walker Denton and Jordan Goldbourn each had a pair of caused turnovers.