South Mountaineer Volume 33, Issue 23

              Lehigh fans are number one
!
Lehigh's loyal basketball fol-
owing made an impression at the
3atriot League Tournament as well
is at Stabler Center over the past
season.
Sports columnist Chris Courogen of the Lewisburg Daily Journal,
who covers the Bucknell basketball
team, selected Lehigh's supporters
as the top fans in the Patriot League.
"The contingent from Bethlehem," Courogen wrote in his March
4 column, "was loud, vocal and
creative, the closest thing the Patriot
has to the famed Duke University
Cameron Crazies."
He also cited Lehigh for the
"top cheer" of the weekend.
"...following a play that was
affected by the close confines of the
Hart Center during the Engineers'
game with Holy Cross. That prompted
a chant of 'High school gym, high
school gym,' by the brown and white
faithful."
Calling it the "classiest move
of the weekend," Courogen wrote
of Lehigh students, arriving early
for the Lehigh-Holy Cross game on
Friday, as the most vocal in cheering for Bucknell down the stretch in
their loss to eventual champion
Fordham.
Strengthening the case of Engineer fans as the best in the Patriot
League was the fact that Lehigh set
the season-high attendance mark with
the 5,123 fans at the Fordham game
on February 9.
see FANS page 4
Volume 33, Number 23
March 19, 1991
Bethlehem, Pa.
Gelrod isn't
hacking at no. 1
By MARC GESUALDO
South Mountaineer Writer:
Ryan Gelrod says:;
he used to like to j List
"hack the tennis ball
around" when he was
a kid. These days he's
doing a lot more than
that - much to the
pleasure of Engineer
head coach Dave
Shook and the Lehigh
tennis team.
The sophomore
from Maple Glen, Pa.
solidified his position
at first singles after a
strong freshman year
and following a 6-0,
6-2 win in his first match this season, it only looks better
for the future.
Add to that the fact that Gel rod recently returned from
a six-month absence due to sprained ligaments in his wrist
and it's easy to see why success comes rather often for
him.
"It's been tough coming back after such a long
layoff," Gelrod said. "But I'm happy with the way I
played and I feel like I'm doing pretty well."
Gelrod started playing tennis at the age of 13 and says
he had a little help in getting started.
"Both of my parents played, so they sort of introduced
me to the sport," Gelrod said.
As it turns out, it's a good thing they did. After
completing a highly successful high school career with a
Lehigh lacrosse opens strong
John McCloskey
see GELROD page 4
By SCOTT D. MORSE
Sports Information Assistant
The Lehigh men's lacrosse team split its first
matches of the season, falling to SUNY-Stony Brook
9-6 on Saturday and defeating Mount Saint Mary's
8-7< in the home opener on
March 9.
Against Stony Brook,
the Engineers trailed early, and were unable to
climb back into the game until late in the fourth
quarter.
"We played hard," said Lehigh head coach
John McCloskey. "I feel positive about the team's
performance. We were down by a lot in the fourth
period, but we came back and closed the gap as
much as we could."
In their home opener, the Engineers showed
relentlessness in coming back to defeat favored
Mount St. Mary's, 8-7.
The victory marked the first season-opening
win for the Engineers since 1988 when the Engineers defeated New Hampshire, 10-8, in the Penn
State Invitational.
After Mount St. Mary's Keith Minn tied the
game at seven with just over five minutes to play,
Engineer sophomore defender Ryan McQueeney
(West River, Md.) put Lehigh back in the lead a
minute later off an assist from senior attacker Tony
Hart (Miami, Fla.).
"I was impressed that our guys kept their
composure and played strong the entire game,"
McCloskey said following the opening-day victory. "We came out so strong at the start and would
have been easy to just sit back on the lead, but we
didn't."
Lehigh broke out to an early 3-0 lead in the
first period behind two goals from junior midfielder
Howard Foster (Greenwich, Conn.). The Mount
(1-1) climbed ahead with a goal in the closing
minute of the first period and three in the second
as they blanked the Engineers the remainder of the
half to hold a 4-3 advantage at the intermission.
"Mount St. Mary's is a real quick team," said
McCloskey of the Mount, which was coming off a
16-11 victory over St. Mary's (Md.). "I thought
they were a much better team than they were last
year."
The Engineers followed their first half pattern, storming out for three straight goals, including two by junior midfielder Geoff Herbert (Fair-
port, N.Y.) as they shut out the Mount for a 6-4
lead heading into the fourth period.
~ After each team tallied a goal to begin the
final period, Mount St. Mary's tied the game with
two consecutive goals, the first coming from Jerry
Towns, his second of the contest, and the second
being Minn's goal that knotted the score at seven
and set the stage for McQueeney's heroics.
Lehigh senior goalkeeper John Francis (Wa-
terbury, Conn.) held his own in the Engineer net,
recording 17 saves for the game.
Also scoring goals for the Engineers were
junior Pat Gilligan (Montclair, N.J.) with one goal
and two assists, junior Robert Sheppard (Chap-
paqua, N.Y.) with a goal, and Hart with a goal to
go along with his game-winning assist.
"I'm really proud of the of the way we played
our first game," added McCloskey. "I think this
is the best organized team I've had. I might have
had more talent, but never this much organization."
The Engineers host New Hampshire this Saturday at 2 p.m. in Goodman Stadium before
departing for their spring training trip to Greensboro, N.C.