Michigan lacrosse traveled to play DU Saturday in sky blue, sun-drenched Denver in front of a packed Peter Barton Stadium crowd. Denver men’s lacrosse (4-1) was looking to rebound from a home loss to Cornell the prior weekend.  Denver looked to clean up faceoffs (-5/season), create turnovers (-9/season) and improve on the man-up advantage (2-10/season) in order to slip by the Wolverines. DU excelled in all three areas. Denver unraveled the halftime tie and pulled away for a convincing 15-9 victory.

Michigan opened the first quarter by ringing the post twice. Denver finally countered the Wolverines with a strike from Cody Malawsky. Less than a minute later, DU’s Chase Bruno scored in traffic as Denver doubled their lead, 2-0. Michigan scratched the scoresheet when CJ Reilly took a feed and scored on DU goalie Grayson Manning. Several minutes later, Chris Merageas beat Michigan goalie Hunter Taylor, 3-1 DU. After several key stops by the Pioneers, Malawsky found paydirt again, 4-1 DU as the Pioneers captured the early momentum. Denver could not stop the Big Blue in the final minute, and CJ Reilly cut Denver’s lead in half, 4-2.

It looked promising when Denver opened the second quarter with a goal from Chris Merageas. However, the visitors flipped the switch and it was all Michigan the rest of the quarter, scoring three straight goals, to knot the score at 5. Denver had chances to score but failed to finish opportunities the last 13 minutes of the half. Faceoffs,  turnovers, and groundballs were even in a half that was a tale of two quarters.

The third quarter was a goal-fest with ten goals. Fortunately, DU had the better of Big Blue. A man-up target from Watt Muir gave Denver the lead. Less than a minute later, Michigan’s Nick Roode leveled the score. It was ‘Cody Malawski time’ as he reeled off two consecutive goals to build a lead Denver would never relinquish. Tim Kirchner, a seldom used player for DU, fired up the Pioneer bench with a strike, 9-6, Denver. A minute later, after gaining possession, Marek Tzagournis struck with a man-up, 10-6, as Denver started to pull away. Michigan countered with a shot that beat Manning but Tzagournis offset the tally with another goal. In the final minute of the quarter, Michigan added a pair of net-finders, 11-9.

The fourth quarter was all about defense as Denver kept the Wolverines off the scoreboard. DU’s Lucas Klokiw and Watt Muir scored a pair of critical goals in the first five minutes, 13-9. Malawski fed Daniel Clark for another insurance marker with 8:30 remaining. Who else but Cody Malawski put an exclamation on the game with an open net dunk, 15-9 final.

This was ‘the Cody Malawski game’ with five goals and two assists. Many of his goals came at key moments. Denver led in all three critical metrics with faceoffs (15-28), turnovers (13/17) and man-up goals (3 of 4) in the Pioneers favor.

It felt like old times as the Pioneers went 5-0 in the all-time series against Big Blue. Denver appears to be rounding into form as they face the meat of their non-conference schedule. The Pioneers get a bit of a break before they travel to Ohio State on March 16th for a Thursday showdown (5pm MT) against the Buckeyes.