PHOTO CREDIT: Laurel Clace '25
STANDISH, Maine – Saint Joseph's College (6-7, 3-3 GNAC) rallied from a three-goal deficit with a 7-0 scoring run to get past Dean College (7-4, 3-3 GNAC), 14-9, in a hard fought Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) men's lacrosse contest at the SJC Athletics Complex on Tuesday evening.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
The Bulldogs had all the momentum early and held a 4-1 lead after senior Diego Alvarez-Segee (Saugus, Mass.) netted an unassisted tally with 9:29 left in the first quarter. Grad attack Xavier Michaud (Wales, Maine) scored twice in a matter of two minutes to make it a one-goal (4-3) game with 5:11 before the start of the second stanza.
Senior attack Alex Speirs (Old Lyme, Conn.) capped the first frame and kicked off the second with tallies to extend the Dean lead to 6-3 with 10:31 before the break. St. Joe's closed out the first half with goals from sophomore Matt Denman (Brentwood, N.H.), Michaud, and grad Nathaniel Girardin (Brunswick, Maine) to knot the game at 6-6.
The SJC scoring parade continued into the third period, when junior Tyler Moscato (West Haven, Conn.) bookended a four-goal string, with the latest strike lifting the Monks to a 10-6 lead with 3:24 remaining in the frame.
Alvarez-Segee broke the Bulldogs' scoring drought when he scored his second marker of the night with 35 seconds left in the third and tacked on his third tally 2:21 into the final frame to cut his team's deficit to 10-8. Junior Will Levesque (Marlow, N.H.) then played a hand in three SJC goals in a matter of two minutes, assisting on a Michaud strike and scoring a pair of his own, to lift the Monks to a 13-8 cushion with 8:53 on the clock.
Alvarez-Segee provided his team with one last gasp just over a minute later when he hit pay dirt off a pass from his brother, Manny Alvarez-Segee, but the SJC defense clamped down and Michaud added his fifth goal of the night with 4:18 left to provide the Monks with an emotionally-charged conference victory.
MILESTONE MET:
SJC senior Tim Goodfellow (Wayland, Mass.) became the fifth player in Monks men's lacrosse program history to net 100 career goals when he found the back of the net off a Tiger Hopkins (Leeds, Maine) assist at the 5:15 mark of the third quarter. He joins Michael Finn '19 (169 goals), teammate Xavier Michaud (124), Jonathan Horgan '12 (111), and Paul Dolewa '12 (104) on the exclusive list of St. Joe's men's lacrosse players who have reached the milestone.
TEAM STATS:
Saint Joseph's held the lead in shots (46-42), shots on goal (32-21), ground balls (43-26), caused turnovers (13-6), and face-off victories (17-10) in the GNAC triumph.
THE KEEPERS:
SJC freshman Reed Wescott (Windham, Maine) turned away 12 shots and picked up three ground balls in a complete-game performance.
Dean freshman Elijah Beland (Augusta, Maine) played very well in the loss and made 18 saves in a losing bid.
LEADERS – SAINT JOSEPH'S:
- Michaud led the SJC offense with five goals and an assist and picked up a pair of ground balls
- Freshman Zander Kirk (Bath, Maine) won 17-of-27 face-off attempts and picked up nine ground balls
- Girardin added two goals, three assists, and four ground balls
- Denman posted two goals and two assists with five ground balls
- Levesque chipped in with two goals and an assist
- Moscato hit pay dirt twice with two ground balls
- Senior Devin Rheaume (Londonderry, N.H.) picked up five ground balls and four caused turnovers
- Sophomore Nick Wesley (Peabody, Mass.) added three ground balls and three caused turnovers
LEADERS – DEAN:
- Diego Alvarez-Segee scored four goals on 12 shots with two ground balls
- Speirs scored twice with two ground balls and a pair of caused turnovers
- Senior Tyler Benedetto (Jupiter, Fla.) was 9-for-26 on face-offs with four ground balls
HISTORICALLY SPEAKING:
Saint Joseph's is now 2-2 all-time versus Dean College, a team that ended the Monks' season with a 15-9 GNAC quarterfinal result last spring.
NEXT!
Saint Joseph's will host Regis College on Friday in a GNAC contest set to start at 4:00 PM. The Monks will celebrate the program's seven seniors with a brief ceremony prior to the start of the contest.
