CASTLETON, Vt. – The Castleton University men's lacrosse team battled tightly with Rivier for the majority of the contest on Wednesday night, but the Raiders pulled away for a 10-4 win over the Spartans thanks to a strong third quarter at Dave Wolk Stadium.
Castleton (1-2) was outshot 41-29 in the contest with a 21-15 margin in shots on goal. Rivier (1-1) collected a 34-23 edge in ground balls and a 10-7 edge in face-off wins, while both sides scored once on the man-advantage. Castleton was 13-of-23 clearing the ball and Rivier went 14-of-18.
Ian Edgar's two-goal performance led the Spartan attack, with
Ethan Esposito and
Chris LaBonte adding tallies as well.
Sean Kimura and
Asa Forbes had assists. LaBonte and
Ty Bowen each had a team-high four ground balls, with Bowen forcing three Raider turnovers as well. Chris Dindino stopped 11 shots in goal in the contest.
Rivier received hat-tricks from Michael Ference and Jeffery Potter, with Ference adding two assists and Potter tallying one helper. Nicholas Tavares and Connor Eck had two goals each. Eck led all players with five ground balls. Sawyer Gagnon earned the win in goal, stopping 11 out of the 15 shots he faced.
Rivier struck first in the contest, but LaBonte leveled the score at 1-1 when he scored unassisted less than five minutes into the contest. The Raiders answered quickly, reclaiming the lead less than 40 seconds later for a 2-1 edge. The lead grew to 3-1 at the end of the first when Potter scored the first of his three in the contest.
Esposito scored the only goal of the second quarter to send the game into halftime with the Spartans trailing by only one, 3-2, but Rivier scored five unanswered goals in the third quarter to push its lead to 8-2 with 15 minutes remaining.
The lead grew to 10-2 over the first eight minutes of the fourth, but the Spartans struck twice before the end of the game to pull closer as Edgar netted both of his goals in the final frame. His first came on a pass from Forbes at even strength, while his second was a man-up goal assisted by Kimura.
Castleton hits the road Saturday to take on Utica at 2 p.m.
