GORHAM, Maine -- The University of Southern Maine men's lacrosse team scored four unanswered goals in the opening quarter and never looked back en route to a 12-6 victory over Saint Joseph's College in damp conditions Tuesday afternoon at Hannaford Field.
The win snapped the Huskies' two-game losing skid and got them back to .500 with a 3-3 overall record. The Monks, winners in their previous two games, dropped to 2-4 on the season.
Junior Nate DelGiudice (Oakland, Maine/Messalonskee) paced the Huskies' attack scoring four goals. Senior Keegan Smith (West Gardiner, Maine/Gardiner Area) also had four points on one goal and three assists. Junior John Bossi (Billerica, Mass.) and senior Jeff Urmston (Bellingham, Mass.) scored two goals apiece. Junior goalie Zach Bessette (Readfield, Maine/Maranacook) recorded 14 saves to earn his third win of the campaign.
Sophomore Michael Finn (Quincy, Mass./North Quincy) scored four of the Monks' six goals. Juniors Matt Donnell (Watertown, Mass.) and Joe O'Reilly (Suffern, N.Y.) tallied the other SJC markers. Junior Brendan Barrett (East Sandwich, Mass./Sandwich) doled out three assists. Junior Connor Trainor (Franklin, Mass.) started in goal for the Monks and made 14 saves in three quarters of play. Classmate Wyatt Porter (Pittsfield, Mass./Saint Joseph Central) came on to play the final quarter and stopped three shots.
Bossi gave the Huskies a 1-0 lead with 6:15 left in the opening quarter converting a feed from Smith. Less than two minutes later, Smith notched an unassisted goal. DelGiudice made it 3-0 with a nifty roll to the cage for an unassisted goal at 2:55. Bossi netted his second goal of the quarter with one second left on the clock.
Urmston opened the second quarter scoring at 12:14, assisted by Smith, to make it five consecutive USM goals. Finn got the Monks on the board taking a feed from O'Reilly and beating Bessette at 9:25. Rookies Tristan Dundas (Abbotsford, B.C.) and Bryce Randall (Portland, Maine/Deering) scored for USM in the latter stages of the quarter to make it 7-1 at halftime.
DelGiudice scored two unassisted goals in the third quarter to push the Huskies' lead to 9-1. Finn matched DelGiudice with two goals of his own, assisted by Barrett and Donnell respectively, to make it 9-3. DelGiudice's third goal of the period in the final minute gave the Huskies a 10-3 advantage going into the final quarter.
Donnell, Finn and O'Reilly scored in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter to close the gap to 10-6 and give the visitors some life, but that would be as close as the Monks would get. Urmston's goal at 8:35 took some of the steam out of the Monks' comeback bid, and sophomore Paul Leonardo (Groton, Mass./Groton-Dunstable) scored the final goal with 5:41 to play.
Southern Maine opens Little East Conference play this Saturday (12:00 p.m.) hosting Eastern Connecticut State University. Saint Joseph's also opens conference play on Saturday (1:00 p.m.) traveling to New Haven, Conn., to take on Albertus Magnus College in a Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) match.
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Saint Joseph's College is Maine's only Catholic liberal arts college, providing a supportive, personalized and career-focused education for more than 100 years. From its 474-acre campus on the shores of Sebago Lake, the College offers more than 40 undergraduate programs to a population of approximately 1,000 students. Saint Joseph's College Online provides certificates, undergraduate and advanced degrees for working adults through an online learning program. For more, visit www.sjcme.edu.
