Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 4/10/16
From Press Releases
Leading by one heading into the final 23:42 of regulation, the Hawks broke the game open with 10 straight goals as the Saint Joseph’s men’s lacrosse team recorded a 16-6 win over Sacred Heart in a snowy Northeast Conference game played on Sweeeny Field on Saturday afternoon. With their fifth consecutive victory, the Hawks improve to 8-2 overall, the best record through the first 10 games of the season in program history, and 3-0 in the NEC. Sacred Heart falls to 2-9 overall and 0-3 in league play.
Senior attackman Pat Swanick (St. Joseph’s Prep) scored a game-high four goals while junior attackman Mike Rastivo (3g, 1a), redshirt sophomore midfielder Hayes McGinley (2g, 1a), sophomore midfielder Davis Stoner (2g) added multi-goal performances.
“I didn’t think that we were sharp in the first half,” said head coach Taylor Wray. “It got a little bit better as the game wore on. Overall, it was a good effort, but we need to be sharper. We’ll talk about it and work on it and see if we can find a way to do that. Pleased to be 3-0 in the league.”
The Hawks jumped out to an early three-goal lead as Rastivo scored twice in 15 seconds (14:25, 14:10) and Swanick added his first of the day at the 13:22 mark of the first quarter.
Sacred Heart’s Max Tuttle tucked away an unassisted goal just under three minutes later (10:48) to close the Pioneers’ deficit to two, 3-1.
Rastivo found sophomore attackman Jason Kelly (Salesianum School) to start the second-quarter scoring and to extend SJU’s lead back out to three goals, 4-1, but SHU’s Matt Posch responded just nine seconds later to once again pull the Pioneers to within two, 4-2, with 11:19 to play in the first half.
The Pioneers and Hawks would then alternate goal scoring twice, with SJU’s Stoner (5:29) and sophomore attackman Kyle Cain (1:00) tallying goals to put the Hawks up, 6-4, entering the halftime break.
Sacred Heart cut the deficit to one as Brian Masi found Julian Garritano just under two minutes (13:29) out of the halftime break, but the Hawks would score the next 10 consecutive goals of the game to jump out to a 16-5 advantage entering the final 5:27.
Sophomore attackman Chris Blewitt found Swanick (3rd, 8:42) and junior midfielder Marcus Milione (3rd, 7:13) to kick off the 10-goal run that spanned the next 18 minutes and 15 seconds. McGinley followed up just 54 seconds later (6:19) on a feed from junior midfielder Kevin Reidinger before Swanick scored at the buzzer to close out the third quarter.
Junior face-off specialist Mike Lanham (Garnet Valley) went 15-of-23 from the circle and matched a game-high six ground balls. Freshman Daniel Lanham (Garnet Valley) went 1-of-2 in the game’s final two possessions.
Denver 12, Villanova 11
The No. 16 Villanova men’s lacrosse team dropped a close game to No. 4 Denver by a final of 12-11 as goalie Alex Ready (Manheim Township, Duke’s LC) made 16 saves.
The Pioneer’s jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the opening minute by the Wildcats answered back scoring two goals of their own; one by Christian Cuccinello and the other by Devin McNamara. Denver then took the lead back scoring the final three goals of the first quarter to have a 5-2 lead. The Pioneer’s Connor Cannizzaro scored his first of six goals to start Denver’s three goal run.
Again the Pioneer’s scored a goal in the opening minute of the half but Jake Froccaro found his brother Joey for a Wildcat goal to make the score 6-3. Cannizzaro scored his second goal right after but the Wildcats finished the half on a three goal run. Jake Froccaro started the run off, Danny Sibel’s goal at the seven minute mark was assisted by Jack Curran, and the last goal by Curran was on a pass inside from Sean Cerrone made the score 7-6 Denver at the half.
Nick Testa got his second start in goal this season for the Wildcats; he played the first 30 minutes and finished with three saves.
Denver’s Cannizzaro scored all three goals that were scored during the third quarter to give the Pioneer’s a 10-6 lead.
Villanova fought back in the fourth quarter, Jake Froccaro scored the first two goals of the fourth quarter both on passes from Jack Curran to being the Wildcats within two. Next it was Cerrone and Seibel who scored goals for Villanova to tie the game up at 10.
Cuccinello rebounded a save that was deflected by Denver’s goal and put the ball into the back of the net to give Villanova their first lead of the game with 6:38 left to play. Denver tied the game up at 11 just a couple minutes later on a goal by Zach Miller. Seconds later on a successful faceoff the Pioneer’s drove the ball straight down and passed it to Cannizzaro who scored the last goal of the game to give Denver their 12-11 lead.
Loyola 11, Lehigh 10
The Lehigh men’s lacrosse team scored the first three second-half goals to take a 9-7 lead, but No. 13/15 Loyola responded with a 4-0 run to surge ahead, on its way to an 11-10 win over the Mountain Hawks on a snowy Saturday afternoon at the Ulrich Sports Complex. Senior Alex Eaton pulled Lehigh back within one goal with 3:55 remaining, but his shot with 50 seconds on the clock was stopped by Greyhounds’ goaltender Jacob Stover to end the Mountain Hawks’ hopes. With the loss, Lehigh falls to 6-5 and 4-3 in Patriot League play while Loyola improves to 8-3 and 5-1 in the league.
In a game of runs, the Mountain Hawks fell behind 6-3 early in the second quarter, but responded with six of the next seven goals to take a two-goal lead before the Greyhounds answered with a run of their own.
“I thought it was a good battle, a back-and-forth affair,” said Lehigh head coach Kevin Cassese. “Loyola made just a couple more plays at the end of the game to secure it. I thought both teams battled really hard. We’ve got to beat them for this thing to turn into a rivalry, but it feels like it’s a rivalry already.”
Despite the loss, Lehigh clinched a Patriot League Tournament berth for a sixth straight season on Saturday due to Colgate’s loss to Navy.
Senior Reid Weber (Germantown Academy) tied a season high with four goals, while adding an assist, to lead the offense. Classmate Billy Oppenheimer (Germantown Academy) added three points behind a goal and two assists while senior Ray Mastroianni scored two goals.
Fairfield 8, Drexel 7
Fairfield battled back from a four-goal second half deficit and defeated Drexel, 8-7, at Rafferty Field on Saturday afternoon. The win moved the Stags (6-6) into a tie for first in the Colonial Athletic Association with a 2-0 mark in league play. Drexel fell to 4-7 overall and 0-2 in conference.
Fairfield’s T.J. Neubauer third goal of the game proved to be the game winner with 3:20 to play. Charlie Horning fed Neubauer, whose shot from about 15 yards out gave the Stags the lead. Fairfield held possession after that until it was called for a shot clock violation. However, the Dragons struggled to get into the offensive zone. When they finally did get it in, Hank Brown’s shot from a distance went high with five seconds to play. The Dragons called timeout with 4.7 seconds to go, but were unable to get a shot off with the last possession as the Stags finished off the comeback.
Holy Cross 11, Lafayette 6
Kevin Lewis and Eric Joseph tallied three points apiece, but the Lafayette men’s lacrosse team couldn’t dig out of a 5-0 first-quarter hole at Holy Cross on Saturday afternoon, falling to the Crusaders by an 11-6 score.
Lewis posted a goal and two assists, while Joseph scored a pair to go along with one helper. Conor Walters added two assists, while Dillon Confalone, Jason Sands and Will McCarthy netted the other three markers for the Maroon and White.
Hofstra 13, Delaware 7
A slow start doomed the Blue Hens Saturday afternoon in their Colonial Athletic Association battle at Hofstra as the University of Delaware fell behind 8-1 in the first half and could never catch up as part of a 13-7 setback at Shuart Stadium.
Delaware (4-8, 1-1 CAA), coming off a 9-7 win over Massachusetts in their league opener a week ago, could not keep that momentum going as the Blue Hens fell behind quickly, pulled to within five goals early in the final stanza, but could never get closer. The Hens fell to Hofstra for the sixth straight time since a win in the 2011 CAA semifinals.
Blue Hen redshirt freshman Andrew Romagnoli led the Hens with two goals and an assist while sophomore Dean DiSimone (St. Augustine Prep), the reigning CAA Player of the Week, added two goals, Steve DeLargy contributed a goal and an assist, and Connor Frisina (Conestoga) tallied one goal. Goalkeeper Parker Ferrigan also contributed 11 saves.
Brown 17, Penn 6
The University of Pennsylvania men’s lacrosse team scored the opening goal in its game against No. 3 Brown Saturday at Franklin Field, but it was all Bears after that as they sprinted to a 17-6 win as Henry Blynn (Haverford School) scored three goals.
Brown responded to Reilly Hupfeldt’s (Haverford School) goal just 2:22 into the game with the next 11 tallies, seven in the first quarter and four in the second. Simon Mathias finally ended the Penn drought with an unassisted score late in the first half, but it was 11-2 at the break. Brown then reeled off the first five goals of the third quarter, making it 16-2 and putting this game to bed.
Tyler Dunn scored twice for Penn, while Mathias finished with a goal and an assist. Kevin McGeary (Malvern Prep) and Joe Licciardi also scored along with Hupfeldt, while Nick Doktor had one assist. At the other end, Reed Junkin made nine saves.