CANTON, N.Y. – The Vermont State University Castleton men's lacrosse team made a late push in Thursday's contest at SUNY Canton, but ultimately fell short 18-12 in a non-conference road tilt.
The Spartans scored five of the game's final six goals, but ran out of time to complete a comeback after surrendering five goals in each of the game's first three quarters. Shots on goal were even at 26 apiece and turnovers were similar as well with Castleton committing 19 and Canton turning it over 21 times. VTSU Castleton had its woes on the clear, going 13-for-18, while Canton converted at an 18-for-21 rate and dominated the ground ball battle, 44-24. The 'Roos also had a 21-12 edge on face-offs and scored four times on the man-advantage.
Hunter Sarro had a big day on offense, racking up the three goals and two assists for a team-high five points.
Preston Kozlowski and
Ethan Esposito also had hat tricks while
Jonah Janaro chipped in a pair of goals.
Carter Frankenhoff had a goal and
Ian Edgar contributed a lone assist.
Asa Forbes led the Spartans with four ground balls and
Zac Smith made seven saves over 50 minutes between the pipes.
Austin Mesler stacked up 12 points with four goals and eight assists on his stat line to lead Canton. Alex Jacobs and Tanner Amell had five goals each and Caeden Goodnough added two scores and three helpers. Devin Guerriero had six ground balls and won 21 faceoffs, while Hayden Todd stopped 14 shots in goal.
The Spartans jumped out to an early lead in the contest thanks to tallies by Kozlowski and Frankenhoff in the first four minutes. Canton responded with three straight goals over a three-minute span to take a 3-2 edge over VTSU Castleton, but Sarro's first of the day leveled the score at three with less than three to play in the opening quarter. The 'Roos were not content with the deadlock, striking twice before the quarter break including the last of the frame with only eight seconds remaining.
Canton tacked on the first four goals of the second quarter as well to run its lead up to 9-3 before Janaro scored on the man-up and Esposito found the twine to make it 9-5. Canton added one more on the man advantage before halftime to lead 10-5 at the break.
Sarro made it 10-6 just over two minutes into the third quarter, but Canton again rattled off four in a row to push the gap to 14-6. Sarro struck again for the Spartans to stop the bleeding and make it 14-7, but the 'Roos responded in just 38 seconds to go into the final frame leading 15-7.
After Canton scored twice to go ahead 17-7, Esposito, Kozlowski and Janaro scored within a two-minute span to cut it back to 17-10 with seven minutes remaining. Kozlowski scored again with 5:26 to play to make it 17-11, but Canton kept Castleton off the board for the next four minutes to keep the lead at an insurmountable distance. Esposito added one final goal with 1:07 to play to give the game its 18-12 final.
The Spartans are back in action Tuesday at 4 p.m. for their first Little East Conference game of the season against Mass Maritime at Dave Wolk Stadium.
