Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 3/10/19
From Press Release
The University of Pennsylvania men’s lacrosse team used a quick start for the second time in three days, and this time Saint Joseph’s was unable to respond in kind as the Quakers cruised to a 13-6 victory at Drexel’s Vidas Field.
The win allowed Penn (2-3) to go 2-0 at the inaugural Philly 4 Lacrosse Classic along with Drexel, while Saint Joseph’s (3-4) and No. 11 Villanova both went 0-2 on the weekend.
All aspects of Penn’s game was clicking on Sunday. The Quakers had six different goal scorers led by Adam Goldner (Malvern Prep) with four while Simon Mathias and Dylan Gergar had three each. Mathias also had two assists for a five-point day. Sam Handley completed a spectacular weekend with four assists, giving him 11 points for the Classic, while Alex Roesner had a goal and three assists and Mitch Bartolo added a goal and an assist.
At the other end, Reed Junkin had 13 saves while allowing just four goals including eight stops before the Hawks scored. And once again, Kyle Gallagher had a strong day on the face-off X, winning 14 of his 19 draws. Richie Lenskold also won both of his face-offs, including a critical one after Gallagher had been penalized for illegal equipment.
Both teams started slowly, as the first goal didn’t come until almost exactly the midway point of the first quarter as Roesner finished a Keyveat Postell (Haverford School) feed. Four minutes later, Mathias finished a Handley feed, the goal extending Mathias’ point-scoring streak to 48 games and his goal-scoring streak to 25. Bartolo finished a Joe Licciardi feed with 1:23 left in the period, and then Gergar finished a Roesner feed late to make it 4-0 after one.
The goals came quicker in the second quarter, Handley feeding Mathias in an extra-man situation and then Gergar to make it 6-0 before the period was a minute old. Mathias then scored unassisted to make it 7-0. Saint Joseph’s finally got on the board with 4:09 left in the half, then made it 7-2 just 35 seconds later. However, Goldner scored his first two goals of the day in the final 2:39 of the half to make it 9-2 Quakers at the break.
Goldner got the hat trick in the first minute of the third quarter off a Mathias feed, before Saint Joseph’s scored again to make it 10-3. The teams went scoreless for nearly nine minutes after that, but Sean Lulley ended the skid off a feed from Roesner to make the score 11-3.
SJU scored the next two goals, the first coming in the final seconds of the third quarter. The second did not come until nearly 10 minutes had passed in the fourth, and just 1:13 later Goldner netted his fourth of the day to make the score 12-5. Gergar scored shortly after that to get his hat trick, before the Hawks scored an inconsequential goal in the game’s final five seconds.
Nick Vernacchio (Upper Dublin) had two goals for the Hawks (3-4).