BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- Senior attack Mark Laratta scored six goals including the 100th of his career to lead the Moravian College men's lacrosse team to a 12-6 non-conference victory over visiting Delaware Valley University on John Makuvek Field Saturday as the Greyhounds opened their 2019 home schedule.
The Hounds, who are now 2-0 this season, had five different scores in the match with Laratta adding an assist to his six goals. He is the second player in school history to reach 100 career goals, which is also tied for the school record, and is second in program history with 141 career points, 29 shy of the school record. Senior midfielder Austin Adams and junior attack Cade Siddron each had two goals while senior attack Jack Gozzard and senior midfielder Dominick Gurreri each tallied a goal and an assist.
Senior goalie Kurt Dick improved to 2-0 in goal this season with 13 saves to go with a pair of ground balls while senior defender John Polich scooped up a team-high seven ground balls to go with a pair of caused turnovers. Sophomore defender Tanner Leslie and senior midfielder Rick Guerra both had five ground balls, and Guerra was 11-of-22 on face-offs.
Laratta added four ground balls while junior long-stick midfielder Jimmy Schicke had five caused turnovers and four ground balls and senior midfielder John Kerrison also had four ground balls. Junior midfielder Peter Degnan contributed three ground balls while senior defender Brian Biase had two ground balls and a pair of caused turnovers and Siddron and senior attack Alec Oriolo both added two ground balls.
The Blue and Grey had a 48-38 edge in shots and scooped up 44 ground balls while clearing the ball out of the defensive end 16-of-24 chances.
The Aggies scored the first two goals of the match before Laratta's first tally of the afternoon put the Hounds on the scoreboard with 6:45 left in the first half. His goal started a 9-0 run for Moravian, and Siddron had the contest tied at 2-2 after the first quarter.
Neither team scored in the first 5:45 of the second quarter until Laratta found the back of the net at the 9:15 mark. Gurreri scored just over a minute later and Laratta dodged around three players to complete his hat trick with 6:53 before the intermission. Moravian scored twice in the final 32 seconds of the half when Gozzard hit the goal off of a pass by Laratta, and Siddron tallied with five second left to send the Greyhounds to the break with a 7-2 edge.
Adams would score just over a minute into the second half while Laratta took a pass from Gozzard to make it a 9-2 lead with 6:48 left in the third quarter. After Delaware Valley scored, Larrata found the back of the net again with under three minutes to go in the period as the Blue and Grey led 10-3 after 45 minutes of action.
Laratta would net his 100th career goal five minutes into the fourth quarter while Adams scored Moravian's final goal with 8:31 to go off of a feed from Gurreri. The Aggies to net the final three goals of the afternoon.
The Greyhounds are scheduled to return to action on Saturday, March 2 in a non-conference match at Kean (N.J.) University beginning at 12:00 p.m. before the squad flies to Florida for a pair of matches on Spring Break.
