ITHACA, N.Y. — On a brisk Wednesday night under the lights at Higgins Stadium, the nationally-ranked Ithaca College men's lacrosse team took down the Cortland Red Dragons 18-12 as the Bombers (8-1) extended their winning streak to six.

Ithaca and Cortland (3-5) had played a series of close games, with the Red Dragons earning overtime triumphs each of the last three years.

Senior Scott Sidnam, a two-time Empire 8 Goalie of the Year, made a career-high 20 saves to consistently turn away the Red Dragons as Ithaca earned its first win over Cortland since an 11-8 decision March 21, 2009.

"Scott was amazing today. In the first quarter he made three or four saves to keep it scoreless until we popped in the first goal," said Eli Gobrecht, Ithaca's senior All-American defender. "I've never seen him play this well in his four years; he's playing out of his mind."

The potent Ithaca offense, which entered play ranked third nationally averaging 16.38 goals per game, was led by freshman Josh Della Puca and junior Jack Shumway, who scored four goals apiece.

"This is the standard for how we want to play and how good we can be. This win is huge for me as a junior, but for the seniors it's even bigger," Shumway said. "This game is written down in our goals sheet in the fall to beat Cortland. We couldn't wait to come out here and get this win."

Senior Michael Walker, junior John Januszkiewicz, and sophomore Stephen Morrell each had two goals apiece. Rounding out the scoring for the Bombers with one goal each were senior Eli Gobrecht, sophomores Jake Cotton, and Kaelan Fitzpatrick, and freshman Brendan  King.Cotton finished with five points on one goal with four assists. 

Gobrecht was a force on defense, causing a team-high five turnovers while scooping up a season-high 12 ground balls on the day.

"Honestly this doesn't feel real yet. It's been four years coming for us seniors, and six years since we last beat them so it hasn't really sunk in yet," said Gobrecht, Ithaca's All-American defender.

"I was a man on a mission and wasn't going to let us lose this game. This win is a huge confidence booster. Since the RPI game we've had a chip on our shoulders when we thought we let one get away. So this was the next game that we circled where we knew it was going to be a battle with a really good team."

Both teams exchanged shots in the early first with several high-quality shots in the opening minutes.

The game was scoreless for the first three minutes of the contest with both teams exchanging high-quality shots until Della Puca netted the first score of the game on a man-up opportunity 4:41 into the game.

In a back-and-forth contest, Cortland would take a 4-3 advantage into the second quarter. Neither team would lead by more than two goals for much of the opening half.

Januszkiewicz and Cotton scored back-to-back goals for a 5-4 IC lead with 11:06 remaining in the second, but the Red Dragons answered with back-to-back goals one minute apart for a 6-5 lead.

Ithaca finally got some separation towards the end of the half as Januszkiewicz, Morell, Della Puca, and Shumway scored as IC closed the half on a 4-0 run and took a 9-6 lead into halftime.

Della Puca opened up scoring in the second half adding his fourth and final goal of the game to extend the lead to 10-6.

Cortland would respond soon after, ending the five-goal run by the Bombers, but Brendan King would respond with a submarine shot that found the back of the net to give Ithaca momentum again.

Fitzpatrick extended the lead to 12-7 in the middle of the third quarter, and IC led 13-7 on Shumway's man-up goal with 6:49 remaining in the third.

The Bombers extended their lead to 15-8 with goals from Walker and Gobrecht early in the fourth, but Cortland answered with three straight goals to slice the lead to 15-11 with 6:51 remaining.

"We didn't need to say anything to each other, we all knew that this was not happening again and they're not getting this win," Shumway said. "We knew what we needed to do and we knew we were going to pull out this win."

Walker ended the scoring run with his second goal of the game, scoring on a man-up opportunity with five minutes to play to make the game 16-11.

The five-goal deficit proved to be too much for Cortland, as Ithaca scored 15 or more goals for the sixth straight time, and eighth time in nine games.

Ithaca will return to action at 12 p.m. Saturday hosting Empire 8 conference foe Stevens at Higgins Stadium. 

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