Box Score
Scranton, PA – Marywood University raced out to a 6-0 lead after the first quarter of Saturday evening's Colonial States Athletic Conference men's lacrosse opener and the Pacers defense, anchored by a 14-save performance by goalie Jesse Habich, shutdown Immaculata University's attack to lead Marywood to a 13-1 victory. The Pacers, who got multi-point performances from seven players, improve to 6-3 on the season (1-0 CSAC) while the Mighty Macs fall to 4-4 overall and 1-1 in conference play.
Gregory Nester gave Marywood the early lead with an unassisted goal just 1:36 into Saturday's contest before Nick Parks doubled the Pacers lead 1:13 later. Junior defender Chris Vogel stretched the Marywood's lead to 3-0 with a highlight-reel goal at the 8:52 mark. Vogel collected a groundball in his defensive zone, raced the length of the field before spinning through Immaculata defenders and beating goalie Jon Diodati.
Brian Roerden scored off a Joe LaBella assist with 4:46 remaining in the opening period and Nester netted his second marker of the game just 12 seconds later. Marcus Janda made the score 6-0 in favor of the hosts with an unassisted goal at the 2:48 mark of the first quarter.
Jordan Smith put Immaculata on the board 50 seconds into the second quarter by scoring a man-up goal that was assisted by Joey Shallow. Marywood responded just over a minute later as Parks found William Roerden open in front of the Mighty Macs cage for the Pacers' 7th goal. Brian Roerden then scored his second goal of the game with 11:37 to play in the second quarter and brother William matched the feat at the 3:24 mark. Jamie Beagen gave the Pacers a 10-1 halftime advantage by scoring with 2:09 to play in the half off of Parks' second helper of the contest.
George Downey IV converted a Beagen assist to account for the only scoring in the third quarter while Janda and LaBella both scored late fourth quarter goals to account for the final scoring.
Janda (2 goals, 1 assist) and Parks (1 goal, 2 assists) each had three-point performances to lead Marywood's attack, while William Roerden (2 goals), Brian Roerden (2 goals), Nester (2 goals), LaBella (1 goal, 1 assist), and Beagen (1 goal, 1 assist) all had two-point efforts in the win.
Marywood held a 40-31 advantage in shots for the game and won the groundball battle 44-27 led by six apiece from Janda and Nick Johnson. The Pacers went 13-17 on face-offs for the game led by Downey's 7-8 effort on draws.
Habich was outstanding in the Pacers' cage, making 14 stops to pick up the win. The senior goalie has allowed just one goal in his last 90:43 in between Marywood's pipes and the Pacers defense has yielded just two goals in the team's last two games.
Diodati made 11 saves in a losing effort for the Mighty Macs.
Marywood returns to the field on Wednesday afternoon when they host Centenary College in a CSAC match-up scheduled to face-off at 4:00 p.m. in Scranton.
