BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- The Moravian College men's lacrosse team jumped out to an 8-0 first quarter lead en route to a 16-4 non-conference win over visiting Wells College at Rocco Calvo Field Wednesday afternoon.
The Greyhounds improve to 5-1 on the season with the victory in a match that was delayed midway through the third quarter for lightning.
"We're a young team and you never really know how you are going to play but I think we took care of business in the first half," commented Head Coach Dave Carty. "We were able to get a lot of guys on the back half of the chart in, and they played hard and did the things that they are supposed to do. We were able to get all three goalies some playing time as well."
Freshman attack James Carroll led eight Greyhounds that scored with four goals while senior midfielder Dave Fiumara added three goals and a pair of assists for a team-high five points. Freshman attack Mark Laratta also had a hat trick for the Blue and Grey with three goals while freshman midfielder Christopher Klodowski added two goals. Freshman midfielders Alec Oriolo and Dominick Gurreri each had a goal and an assist while freshman attack Jack Gozzard and senior midfielder Pat Moscatello each scored once.
"It was great to see Pat score since he is a senior captain that really doesn't see that much time," Carty said. "The guys went crazy when he was able to score."
Freshman midfielder Jake Burcaw, freshman midfielder Hayden DuPont, freshman midfielder AJ Cioffi and freshman midfielder Rick Guerra each had assists in the victory for Moravian with DuPont winning 9-of-12 face-offs to go with four ground balls and Guerra winning 9-of-10 face-offs with a team-high seven ground balls.
Laratta also added seven ground balls while Oriolo picked up five ground balls. Carroll added four ground balls while Fiumara, Burcaw and junior attack Alex Hughes each had three ground balls.
Moravian used all three of its goalies in the match with freshman Kurt Dick making five saves in the first 30 minutes of action. Freshman Trevor Bickel had five saves in 20 and a half minutes in goal while junior keeper Michael Smith had four saves over the final nine and a half minutes of the contest.
The Hounds needed just seven seconds to score at the beginning of the match as Carroll scored off of a pass from DuPont after a face-off win. Laratta would give Moravian a 2-0 lead before the contest was a minute old, and Laratta finished his hat trick in the first quarter as the Blue and Grey led 8-0 after 15 minutes of action.
Wells scored a man-up goal just over three minutes into action in the second period but the Greyhounds needed just eight seconds to get the goal back as Carroll netted his third goal after a face-off win by Guerra. Moravian would score three more times to lead 12-1 at halftime, and the Hounds held a 16-2 edge after 45 minutes of action.
Moravian is scheduled to return to action on Saturday, March 19 in a non-conference match at Bryn Athyn College beginning at 3:00 p.m.
