Men’s Lacrosse Makes It Three-Straight, Holds-off St. Joseph’s (LI), 8-6
Anthony Andolina scored four times and Quentan Polkowski made 14 saves to lead MCLA to an 8-6 nonconference win at St. Joseph's (LI) this afternoon.
PATCHOGUE, New York— The MCLA Men's Lacrosse team completed its three-game spring break road trip with its third straight win taking down St. Joseph's (LI) earlier this afternoon in nonconference action. With the victory the Trailblazers improve to 4-2 while the Golden Eagles fall to 2-3.
Fresh off his career-high eight-goal performance earlier in the week at Centenary (NJ), freshman attacker Carson Lewis picked up where he left off giving MCLA a 1-0 lead midway through the first quarter.
A Neal Bierley goal less than two minutes later and another man-up tally by the junior attacker made it 3-0 with less than three minutes remaining in the stanza. Anthony Andolina, who assisted on the first two goals, closed out the quarter with what would prove to be the first of his four goals on the day, to make it 4-0 MCLA.
The Trailblazers were held scoreless in the second quarter and St. Joe's cut the deficit to two as goals by Matt Cioffi and Nick Morales made it 4-2 at the half.
Goals by Andolina (assist by Keegan Covello) and Lewis pushed the MCLA lead back to four (6-2) but a Caden Stubba goal with just under six minutes in the third quarter kept the Golden Eagles within striking distance.
Andolina (assists by Josh Hemstock and Lewis) and Stubba traded four goals to start the fourth quarter making it 8-5 with 5:39 left. A late man-up goal by Najee Henderson in the waning seconds proved to be too little too late for the hosts as MCLA held on 8-6 to earn their third-straight nonconference road win to wrap up the week.
St. Joeseph's goalkeeper John Marino (L, 2-3) made 11 saves on 19 shots in the loss while MCLA's Quentan Polkowski (W, 4-2) stopped 14 of 20 shots on goal in the win.
Each team won nine face-offs with St. Joe's winning the turnover battle (27-21) and MCLA collecting more ground balls (43-39).
The Golden Eagles next host Anna Maria College on Wednesday while the Trailblazers host Thomas (ME) next Saturday at noon in both teams' North Atlantic Conference season opener.
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