NEWTON, Mass. (3/22/14) – The Lasell College men's lacrosse team used a strong fourth quarter to pull away from Great Northeast Athletic Conference foe St. Joseph's College of Maine, 9-6 on Saturday afternoon at Grellier Field. Lasell improved to 3-3 on the season and 2-0 in GNAC with the victory while the Monks slipped to 3-2 overall and 2-1 in league action.
Casey Sullivan (Waterford, Conn.) finished with three goals and one assist for the Lasers while Josh Gallant (Hampstead, N.H.) tallied a career-high three goals. Aaron LaPorte (Gorham, Maine) chipped in a pair of goals for Lasell who also got a goal and two assists from Andrew Suh (Colchester, Conn.) and two assists from Joe Cunning (Newton, Mass.). David Walen (Longmeadow, Mass.) stopped 14 shots and allowed only six goals to earn the win in net for Lasell.
Jake O'Brien (Andover, Mass.) led the way for St. Joe's with a pair of goals, Max Meserve (Kennebunk, Maine) and Andrew Sullivan (Rochester, N.H.) each added a goal and an assist. Andrew Hamill (Wolfeboro, N.H.) and Jake Ricciardi (Sharon, Mass.) each chipped in with goals for the Monks, and Ethan Rettew (Ephrata, Pa.) took the loss in the cage despite making 16 saves in the game.
Andrew Sullivan scored the lone goal of the opening quarter to give St. Joseph's the lead 1-0 heading into the second period. Lasell struggled to crack the Monks defense, finally breaking through with just over four minutes to play in the half when Aaron LaPorte scored on a feed from Casey Sullivan. Josh Gallant found the back of the net off a pass from Cunning, then the two hooked up again with 23 seconds left in the half to make it 3-1 in favor of the Lasers at the intermission.
Andrew Hamill scored minutes into the third quarter for St. Joseph's then seconds later Jake Ricciardi scored on a pass from Alex O'Neill to tie the game with 10:15 left in the third. Max Meserve put the visitors in front with an unassisted tally to make it 4-3, Casey Sullivan tied the game at 4-4 with his first goal of the game but Jake O'Brien notched his first on the game to put the Monks ahead 5-4 with 7:18 to play in the third. Aaron LaPorte equalized for Lasell with just over a minute to play in the period and the two teams went to the final 15 minutes deadlocked at 5-5.
Casey Sullivan found a seam around the crease and slipped between a pair of Monks defenders to take a feed from Suh to put Lasell in front 6-5, and Suh found Gallant in transition moments later to give Lasell a 7-5 lead with just under 10 minutes on the clock. Suh added an unassisted goal of his own to stretch the hosts lead to 8-5 and Sullivan completed his hat-trickwith less than two minutes to play to put the game away. O'Brien scored a man-up goal with 50 seconds to play for the Monks to produce the final 9-6 margin.
Lasell will host GNAC foe Mount Ida College on Wednesday March 22nd at 4:00 p.m. and St. Joseph's will host non-conference opponent Plymouth State on Wednesday March 26th at 4:00 p.m. as well.