Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 2/9/19
From Press Release
Since they arrived on campus, head coach Ben DeLuca and his staff have preached the message of “refocus.”
In the 2019 season opener, the University of Delaware men’s lacrosse team showed the ability to do just that in a commanding 11-8 road victory over Mount St. Mary’s on a bitterly cold Saturday afternoon.
“I thought our guys came out with great fight and resolve like we’ve talked about as a team for two years now. We didn’t play our best game, I thought we were pretty sloppy at times, but our guys were able to pull together at the right time and come out with the win,” DeLuca said.
Junior Bryce Reid (Avon Grove) tied a career-high with four goals in the win, while classmate Charlie Kitchen (St. Augustine Prep) added two goals and three assists. Kitchen notched five or more points for the seventh time in his career and extended his goal-scoring streak to 18 straight games, which ranks as the fifth-longest in the country.
Senior Jake Hervada (Haverford School) set the tone at the X, winning 14 of the 22 face-offs on the day and finished with a team-high five groundballs. Junior Matt DeLuca was once again outstanding in goal for the Blue Hens, racking up 13 saves on the day. It’s his 15th double-digit save performance of his career.
“We’ve worked really hard and it was good to see that work pay off here in the first game. Our coaches did a great job giving us a great week of practice and setting us up to execute for the win and we did enough to do just that this afternoon,” Hervada said. “It wasn’t our best performance, but we’ve talked all spring about the ability to refocus and I thought we did just that today.”
Joe Eisele (St. Augustine Prep) added two goals and Dean DiSimone (St. Augustine Prep) had a goal and three assists while Clay Miller (Cumberland Valley) had a goal and an assist.
The two teams traded goals for the first 25 minutes of the contest, before the Blue Hens blistered off three straight to take a 6-3 lead into the break.
Delaware’s momentum would carry over scoring four of the first six goals in the second half to grab a 10-5 advantage headed into the fourth.
Mount would muster a bit of a comeback, but a man-up goal from Reid and two big saves from DeLuca down the stretch secured the win for the Blue Hens.
Delaware returns to action next Saturday, Feb. 16 when they travel to NJIT. Game time in Newark, N.J. is set for 1 p.m.