Men's Lacrosse Blanks Lions, Improves To 3-2 Ahead Of GNAC Play

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. - The University of Saint Joseph (USJ) men's lacrosse team took the win in dominant fashion Wednesday afternoon over the Lions of Eastern Nazarene College (ENC), 20-0, in a non-conference match on the USJ Lacrosse Field.

GAME INFORMATION
Score: Eastern Nazarene 0, Saint Joseph 20
Records: ENC (0-4), USJ (3-2)
Location: USJ Lacrosse Field | West Hartford, Conn.

The Blue Jays were led by junior midfielder Noah Mocksfield (Colchester, Conn.), who scored a game-high four goals. Junior midfielder and captain Evan Baden (Burlington, Conn.) added three as did freshman attack Gavin Cabral (Burlington, Conn.). Sophomore attackman Ryan Paltauf (Southbury, Conn.) had a game-high five assists. Paltauf leads the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) in assists with 20, and is second in points with 28, while Mocksfield is atop the GNAC with 18 goals. 

Saint Joseph attempted a school record 86 shots (previous best was 73 twice), and had its first shutout in program history. The Lions are in their first season as a program and have dipped to 0-4 on the season. USJ is now 3-2 overall heading into conference play. 

PLAYER QUOTE [Noah Mocksfield] "It's so important to get everybody in. You need everybody to be improving, not just the people that play every day. It's important to see the field, see what it is like to play a college game, the speed, all of it. The goal is to keep it up [scoring goals and dishing out assists]. As a third-year program, two year when you think about it with the shutdown, we certainly want to be up there delivering on a daily basis."

COACH QUOTE [Andrew Fink] "We wanted to come here and show these guys some respect. We were here three years ago as a new program, and they played last night and now today. We also wanted to give other guys who don't get as many minutes an opportunity to play, and that happened. We all got to play, we were once a first-year program, it shows the guys just how far we have come."

GOALIE BREAKDOWN

ENC – Freshman Ryan Almeida (Pompton Lakes, N.J.) took the loss (0-4), allowing 15 goals in 47 minutes of play. He also had 16 saves. Freshman Walter Stockwell (Hyde Park, Mass.) also saw time for the Lions.

USJ – Graduate Student stopper Joseph Varagnolo (Centereach, N.Y.) took the win (1-0) with two saves in 30 minutes of shutout lacrosse. Freshman Nick Schilling (Brookfield, Conn.) and junior Jayme Hollimion (Blacksburg, Va.) also saw field time on the day.

BATTLE AT THE 'X'

Faceoffs were all Blue Jays, 17-5. Sophomore midfielder Andrew Parisi (Ellington, Conn.) led the way with eight of them on 11 attempts.

UP NEXT
The Blue Jays are set to host their first Great Northeast Athletic Conference game of the season, a battle with the Lasers of Lasell University on Saturday, March 19 at 3:00 p.m. Fans can head over to www.usjbluejays.com to catch all the action live.

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