March 28, 2012

Box Score

BOSTON, Mass. - Sophomore middie Patrick Tommins (Fairfield, Conn.) recorded a hat trick to lead the Norwich University men's lacrosse team past Emmanuel College, 6-2, Wednesday evening at Clemente Field. With the victory, the Cadets improve to 2-4 on the year and 1-1 in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference while the loss drops the Saints to 4-4 overall and 0-2 in GNAC play.

Norwich opened the game with two scores in the first quarter and never looked back. Junior middie Arron Canarelli (New Hartford, N.Y.) opened the game's scoring with an unassisted tally at the 6:39 mark to make it a 1-0 game before Tommins potted his first goal of the game with just under five minutes to play in the quarter, finishing an assist from senior Patrick Sikora (Montpelier, Vt.) to make it 2-0.

Emmanuel would cut the lead in half, making it a 2-1 contest when freshman middie Jake Jaskolski (St. Clair Shores, Mich.) found sophomore attackman Brian O'Regan (Milton, Mass.) for his fifth goal of the campaign with 12:29 left to play in the half. The Cadets answered just 1:15 later as the Tommins-Sikora connection hooked up again to make it a 3-1 contest. Norwich would round out the second quarter scoring as sophomore middie Ian Mendoza (Mount Airy, Md.) found the back of the net with an unassisted marker with 2:04 on the clock to give the visitors a 4-1 cushion heading into halftime.

The Saints were able to keep the score at 4-1 for nearly nine minutes of action to open the second half before Norwich got back into the scoring column at the 6:06 mark in the third. Sophomore defenseman Zach Maysonet (Clark, N.J.) forced an EC turnover and then led a Cadet fast break towards the Saints net. The longsticker dumped the ball to a streaking Tommins who finished the feed with an over the shoulder shot into the top corner of the net to make it a 5-1 game. Emmanuel would keep pace with NU in the quarter as O'Regan notched his second goal of the night at the 3:27 marker to pull EC back to within three scores at 5-2. Freshman middie Jake Pickett (Stratham, N.H.) started the play by firing a shot that was blocked by a Norwich defender and O'Regan was able to scoop up the groundball and redeposit it into the back of the net for his sixth score of the season.

EC had every chance to get back into the contest early in the fourth quarter as the Cadets were whistled for a pair of 1-minute penalties but the hosts were unable to convert both opportunities and then Norwich was able to seal the win with a man-up goal of its own later in the frame to account for the 6-2 final. Mendoza netted his second goal of the match, finishing a feed from sophomore Marco Wiederanders (Denver, Colo.) with 6:38 left to play to secure the Cadet's first GNAC win of the season.

On the game, Emmanuel was 0-5 on the extra-man opportunities while the Cadets were 1-5 and also owned a commanding 9-3 margin on face-offs won.

Freshman goalkeeper Austin Coleman (Vista, Calif.) made four saves in net for Norwich in the opening half to earn his first collegiate victory and improve to 1-1 overall on the year while freshman Ryan Fecteau (Danvers, Mass.) took over in the second half, making five saves in between the pipes.

Freshman Austin Lauzier (Bedford, N.H.) made four saves on the night for Emmanuel and falls to 4-4 overall on the year with the decision.

The Saints will return to action on Saturday when they head across the city to take on Emerson College at Rotch Field in a 1:00 PM GNAC battle while Norwich is back at it tomorrow night when they travel to Castleton, Vt. to take on Castleton State in a 7:00 PM non-conference game.