ROCHESTER, N.Y. - On Thursday evening, men's lacrosse defeated No. 3 SUNY Geneseo 14-12 in the semifinal round of the Empire 8 tournament. Matthew Farrington led the Golden Flyers in points with five on two goals and three assists. Owen Riley and William O'Neill led Nazareth in scoring with three goals each. Nazareth advances to the title game to take on top-seeded St. John Fisher on Saturday at 12 p.m. Th Golden Flyers will be meeting the Cardinals in the championship game for the fifth-straight season.

Nazareth improves its record to 13-5 overall and 10-1 in conference play with the win while SUNY Geneseo will finish its season with a record of 11-7 overall and 7-3 in Empire 8 contests.

Nazareth opened up the scoring just one minute into the game with an unassisted goal from Riley. Two minutes later, William Meagher found the back of the net, also unassisted. At the 9:06 mark, Andy Hamel went on the board for another unassisted goal to put the Golden Flyers up 3-0 early in the first.

Following a Knights goal, the Golden Flyers scored two more unassisted goals, Riley scoring his second of the game, and Farrington scoring his first to go up 5-1 with six minutes left in the first quarter. Geneseo did not let Nazareth sit comfortably for long, cutting the lead to 5-3 by the end of the first, and scoring the first goal of the second quarter to put Nazareth up by just one goal at 5-4.

Over the next six and a half minutes, the two teams traded the next six goals, Meagher going unassisted again, Farrington scoring his second unassisted goal, and Kyle Rosenberger tossing an impressive behind-the-back shot to the back of the net off an assist from Farrington for Nazareth's first assisted goal of the game. Up 8-7, the Golden Flyers allowed the Knights to tie up the game for the first time at the 4:40 mark.

Each team scored once more to end the half at a 9-9 tie, O'Neill scoring Nazareth's ninth goal.

In the third quarter, the Golden Flyers were able to hold the Knights scoreless, while putting up three goals themselves. Riley scored less than a minute into the quarter on an assist from Meagher to set the tone in the third. Nazareth's next two goals came from man-up opportunities. Quinn McKercher scored his first goal of the game from Riley just as the Knights' penalty clock ran out. O'Neill scored his second goal of the game on a pass from Farrington towards the end of the third quarter to send Nazareth into the final period with a 12-9 advantage.

Geneseo put the pressure on Nazareth, scoring the first two goals of the quarter to cut the Golden Flyer lead to one. At the 8:36 mark, Louis Cogliandro cut through the middle and converted on a well-placed pass from Farrington to give Nazareth a two-goal cushion. With less than five minutes left, Geneseo scored again on a man-up opportunity. At the 3.:18 minute mark, O'Neill scored the Golden Flyers' final goal of the game to end the game at a score of 14-12. 

McLean Ralston was between the pipes for all four quarters, earning a total of six saves.

Jakob Denkenberger took all 30 faceoffs for the Golden Flyers and won 19 of them for a faceoff percentage of .633.