March 11, 2015
3-2-0 | 3-3-0 |
| 8 | 9 |
| Tuesday, March 10 (7 p.m.) | |
MacDowell Field | Babson Park, Mass.
| POST GAME LINKS |
| Box Score (HTML) | Box Score (PDF) |
| FINAL STATISTICS |
BABSON PARK, Mass.; March 10, 2015 - TJ Sanders (Orillia, Ontario) matched a career-high with five goals and Matt Sexton (Niskayuna, N.Y.) produced his first multi-goal game en route to the Penn State men's lacrosse team's 9-8 win over Marist on Tuesday, the programs' first meeting.
Mike Sutton (Sewell, N.J.) and Pat Manley (Arnold, Md.) rounded out the Nittany Lions' scoring. Nick Aponte (West Islip, N.Y.), Ryan Keenan (Smithtown, N.Y.), Drake Kreinz (Delafield, Wis.) and Sutton picked up helpers.
A major reason for the Nittany Lions' (3-3) success, Kreinz won 70 percent of his face-offs during the game, going 14-6 at the 'X'. Penn State won the ground ball battle, 21-17, led by Kreinz's seven. The Nittany Lions out-shot the Red Foxes, 35-30, as Sanders and Sutton each took nine shots. In the cage, Connor Darcey (Wellesley, Mass.) moved to 3-3 on the year, making 10 saves to Dave Scarcello's seven.
Despite falling behind 2-0 nearing the end of the first quarter, the majority of the opening frame was spent in Marist's half of the field. Penn State out-shot the Red Foxes, 14-5. As the game hit its midway point, the Nittany Lions were able to capitalize on their chances and proceeded to go on a 7-2 run.
Sanders put Penn State on the board and Sexton knotted the score at 2-2 less than two minutes apart as the clock wound down in the first quarter. However, Joseph Radin, who got Marist's opening two tallies, scored another pair in the first half of the second quarter to give the Red Foxes (3-2) a 4-2 advantage.
But 51 seconds after Radin's fourth of the game, eight minutes into the second quarter, Sanders sparked a series of five unanswered goals. He completed the hat trick 45 seconds later, then kicked off the second half with a marker 1:19 in. Sexton and Manley scored 59 seconds apart midway through the third quarter to give the Blue and White a 7-4 lead.
Radin continued to strike and broke up the string with just under six minutes remaining in the third quarter, cutting Penn State's lead to 7-5. The teams proceeded to trade goals, with Sanders responding seven seconds later, Radin answering after 1:35 ticked off the clock with his sixth of the game and Sutton handing Penn State its 9-6 lead with 1:55 remaining in the third quarter.
Despite scoring a pair of goals in the fourth quarter, Marist couldn't complete a comeback for the final 9-8 score.
The Nittany Lions close out their Massachusetts Spring Break trip at UMass on Sat., March 14 at noon.