Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 2/14/16
From Press Release
Monmouth University kicked off its third year of men’s lacrosse with an 11-5 victory at Jacksonville University in the sixth annual Moe’s Southwest Grill Lacrosse Classic at D.B. Milne Field on Sunday night. In the Hawks’ season opener, junior Chris Daly (Lower Merion) tallied his fourth career hat trick with three goals, while sophomore Bryce Wasserman added two goals and an assist.
Monmouth’s Zack Schleicher (Conestoga) is defended by Jacksonsville’s Ryan Beville (Allentoen Central Catholic) – Photo for Phillylacrosse.com
Monmouth’s defense, which forced 16 turnovers, got an eight-save night from junior goalkeeper Nick Hreshko (La Salle) in his first career victory in net, while seven different Hawks scored goals and 10 Hawks registered points on the night.
“It is always a good feeling when you can start the season with a win,” stated head coach Brian Fisher, a Ridley High grad. “I loved how excited we were throughout the game and how hard our guys played. Overall, we had a lot of balance on the offensive end with a lot of guys contributing, while defensively we set the tone with our ride, played stout team defense and got a solid performance from Nick (Hreshko).”
Andrew Grajewski (La Salle) led the Monmouth defense with three groundballs and two caused turnovers.
The Hawks jumped out to a 3-0 advantage in the first quarter as Daly broke the seal on the 2016 season at 11:20, giving Monmouth a 1-0 edge off a feed from junior Dan Bloodgood. Wasserman added an unassisted tally at 9:30 to push the Hawks ahead 2-0 and the Daly-Wasserman duo combined for Monmouth’s third straight score with 4:56 left to give the Blue & White the three goal lead.
JU’s Dakota Rohlin ended the streak for the Dolphins, notching his second of the season, to make the score 3-1 with 1:51 left in the first.
Graduate student John Castellano scored in the second quarter to push the Monmouth lead to 4-1, while Wasserman registered his second unassisted tally to give the Hawks a 5-2 edge with 4:01 left in the half. The Dolphins trimmed the Monmouth lead to two at the intermission on Aaron Jollow’s score with 2:01 remaining, but would not get any closer.
The Hawks went on a 3-0 run again to open the third quarter, as junior Kevin Murphy (Penn Charter) notched his 11th career goal off a feed from sophomore Dylan Schulte (Seneca, NJ) with 9:29 left to start the streak. Daly tallied his third of the game to push MU in front 7-3 and on the following faceoff, sophomore Keegan Teluk converted from the X and assisted on Bloodgood’s first of the year, just five seconds later, as the Hawks grabbed an 8-3 lead.
The Dolphins pulled within 8-4 with 2:39 remaining in the third stanza on a Cody Ford score, as the Blue & White held a four-goal lead through three quarters.
Following a Jacksonville turnover near midfield, junior Neil Ruppert scooped a groundball and found Castellano for his second of the game, and Monmouth took a 9-4 lead with 7:04 left in the game. The Hawks pushed their lead to 10-5 on junior Zack Schleicher’s (Conestoga) unassisted goal with 1:47 left, while sophomore Grier Wilson scored his first career goal with 47 seconds left to account for the final tally.
Fisher added, “For an early season game it was a little sloppy and there is still a lot of things to cleanup but we are excited to earn the win today and have a lot to build on.”
Monmouth, which was 18-of-19 on clears for the game, outshot the Dolphins 36-23 and went 9-of-20 from the faceoff X.
Jacksonville, which opened the season with a 17-16 victory over Vermont, falls to 1-1.