Box Score
Scranton, PA – Marywood University built an 8-0 lead after the first quarter of Saturday's Colonial States Athletic Conference men's lacrosse game and cruised to a 15-3 win over Shenandoah University, clinching the Pacers' third-straight berth in the CSAC playoffs. Marywood improves to 9-3 on the season with the win and remains unblemished in conference play with a 4-0 mark while the Hornets fall to 2-10 overall and remain winless in four CSAC contests.
After playing in three-straight games determined by a single goal, the Pacers seemed determined to leave little doubt about Saturday's result, scoring just 39 seconds into the game when Dustin Sturdevant (Binghamton, NY) scored off a George Downey IV (Palmyra, PA) assist. William Roerden (Warwick, NY) found the net off a feed from Nick Parks (Emmaus, PA) with 6:36 to play in the first quarter then returned the favor just 13 seconds later, setting up Parks to give Marywood a 3-0 lead. Downey and Roerden would tally markers also separated by just 13 seconds just under two minutes later, and Parks, Roerden, and Gregory Nester (Morgantown, PA) would each hit the twine in the final 1:40 of the first quarter to give the Pacers the 8-0 lead.
Stephen Klepfer (Binghamton, NY) got into the act by rifling home a shot 18 seconds into the second quarter and Jamie Beagen (Patchogue, NY), Joe LaBella (Allentown, PA), and Anthony Tuscai (West Chester, PA) would follow suit to stretch Marywood's lead to 12-0 with 4:22 to play in the opening half. Parks and Downey would add goals before the intermission to give the Pacers a comfortable 14-0 lead at the break.
Shenandoah's Matt Hendrickson would score the only goal of the third quarter off a Jimmy Bungert assist with the Hornets a man-up with 2:02 remaining in the period.
P.J. Cooper tallied the visitor's second man-up goal just 11 seconds into the fourth quarter before Nick Ferrante (Tom River, NJ) scored Marywood's only goal of the second half with 12:58 to play. Cooper closed out the scoring off a Joe Avveduti feed at the 10:25 mark.
Roerden led all scorers with six points on three goals and three assists. Parks added five goals on three goals and two helpers and Downey (2 goals, 1 assist) and Jamie Beagen (1 goal, 2 assists) each contributed three-point games for the Pacers, who held a 43-23 advantage in shots for the game and a 48-38 edge in groundballs.
Jesse Habich (Broomall, PA) made five saves in the first 30 minutes of action to pick up the win for Marywood. Eric Luhrmann (Glen Falls, NY) made six saves in 20-plus minutes of action while Michael Saccomani turned aside one shot between the Pacers' pipes. Nicholas Cornella (Wantagh, NY) tended Marywood's goal for the final five minutes of the game and was not forced to make a save.
Marywood returns to action on Wednesday afternoon when they visit Susquehanna for a 4:00 p.m. face-off in non-conference action.
