Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 3/4/15
From Press Release
After 18 months of preparation and practice since the school announced the sponsorship of men’s lacrosse as an intercollegiate sport, Delaware Valley College took the home field for its inaugural game and defeated Immaculata University, 8-7.
The first win in program history gets the Aggies out to a 1-0 start and they will look to improve on that record on Saturday, March 7 when they host Arcadia University for a 4:00 p.m. contest. The Mighty Macs suffered their second defeat in as many contests.
It took just 5 minutes and 52 seconds for history to be made as Alex McKenzie (Neshaminy) scored the first Aggie men’s lacrosse goal when he took a pass from Riley Kratzke (Central Bucks West) and found nothing but twine for a man-up goal that gave Delaware Valley a 1-0 lead.
Immaculata answered less than five minutes later with Brendan Doyle getting on the board. Then, with just over a minute remaining in the first quarter, Chris Coyle buried one to put the Aggies back on top.
Early in the second, the Mighty Macs capitalized on a man-up opportunity to tie the game, but the duo of McKenzie and Coyle responded with back-to-back tallies in a 2:20 span to put Delaware Valley back on top, 4-2.
Immaculata came right back with two consecutive goals from Tyler Black and the game was tied for the third time with just 2:45 remaining on the first half clock. The tie was short lived as Matt Brady (North Penn) got his first goal of the season just 31 seconds later and the Aggies took a 5-4 advantage into the break.
In the second half, Delaware Valley got three straight goals in a span of 2 minutes, 30 seconds. Brady, McKenzie and Seth Clauser all scored even-strength tallies for the largest lead of the game at 8-4 with 5:42 to play in the third quarter.
The Mighty Macs fought back with Riley Cocks scoring on a man-up situation just before the end of the third quarter to cut the deficit to three. Then, in the fourth quarter, Immaculata got two goals in less than a minute, both from Doug Hughes, to pull within one, 8-7, with 8:16 left in regulation.
From there, the Aggies defense shut the door with goalie Jacob Tomasik making two saves. And the offense did a stellar job retaining possession in the attack zone to run out the clock and ignite the celebration of a historic victory.
Tomasik made 16 saves on 23 shots to earn his first win of the year. Delaware Valley got three goals from McKenzie, two each from Brady and Coyle and one from Clauser. Clauser, Kratzke, Deron Dixon and Danny Smith (Oakcrest, NJ) each picking up assists.
For Immaculata, Brien Cullen took the loss in net despite making 12 saves. The Mighty Macs were 3-for-6 on man-up chances. Doug Hughes (Bayard Rustin) and Tyler Black had two goals apiece in the loss. Junior Michael Thompson (Bishop Shanahan) and freshman Brendan Doyle (Springfield-Montco) each had a goal and an assist, while freshman Riley Cocks went 9-for-18 on faceoffs and added the first goal of his career.
