Box Score
Colchester, VT – The #2 men's lacrosse team took on the #11 Purple Knights of St. Michael's College earlier this afternoon in a Northeast-10 Conference contest. Despite the Panthers leading by one at the conclusion of the third, a scoreless final frame proved to be the game changer as the hosts went ahead to tack on three in the final 15 minutes of play to serve Adelphi their first loss of the year, 11-9. In defeat, the Brown and Gold move to 9-1, 7-1 NE-10 while St. Michael's advances to 8-2, 7-0 NE-10.
Seven different players registered at least one goal for the Panthers. Among them, Nick Watson and Joe Celano found the back of the net twice while Ikerson Hoper, Salvatore Tuttle and Brian Prendergast all recorded an even split of two points.
Gregory Puskuldjian and Rashad Cureton continued to impress on faceoffs, combining for 18 wins on 23 attempts. Puskuldjian won 11 of his 13 while tying teammate Joseph Sciara with eight ground balls. Eric Janssen and Aidan Bennardo evenly shared the 60 minutes of action; Janssen allowed five to get by him and made nine saves while Bennardo played the final half, allowed six goals and made seven saves.
For St. Michael's, Max Zuccarini found the back of the net five times on 12 shots. Marty Vanzo and Tim McDonald combined for four goals while Pete Donnally and Evan Antolino rounded out the scoring contingent with one goal apiece. Chris DeMairo logged all 60 minutes in cage and made a total of 10 stops with half of them coming in the fourth quarter.
On a feed from Prendergast, Celano kicked the game off quickly with his first of two goals just 39 seconds into the game. Zuccarini responded with two goals on assists from McDonald and Evan Antolino to give St. Michael's the 2-1 lead. Sciara and Antolino swapped scores to close out the quarter with the score reading 3-1 in favor of the Purple Knights.
Celano's man-up goal followed by Hopper's 18th of the season put Adelphi back on top, 4-3. Each team traded scores once again until Vanzo beat Janssen with 36 seconds left in the half to make it a 5-5 affair heading into the third.
Tuttle, Watson and Jamie McAndrew combined for four goals in the third stage while St. Michael's put three more on the board from the combined efforts of McDonald and Zuccarini. Heading into the final quarter, the score read 9-8 in favor of Adelphi. However, the Panthers came up empty on all 12 of their shots on cage and were held scoreless in the final frame. Conversely, St. Michael's pulled even at 9-9 in the early stages and then notched the go ahead goal thanks to Zuccarini. Vanzo added an insurance goal less than two minutes later to seal the deal.
The Panthers are back in action on Monday, April 15 when they head to Springfield, Massachusetts to take on American International College in an NE-10 matchup at 4pm.
