DAVENPORT, Fla. --- The Moravian College men's lacrosse squad raced out to a 5-0 lead and went on to post a 13-4 non-conference victory over St. Joseph's (Maine) College Monday afternoon at Northeast Regional Park in Florida.
The Greyhounds, who are now 3-0 on the year, had five different goal scorers led by senior attack Mark Laratta, who had five goals to set the program record with 105 tallies in his career. Laratta also added two assists and three ground balls while junior attack Cade Siddron had four goals, two assists and six ground balls. Senior attack Jack Gozzard netted two goals to go with an assist and a pair of ground balls while sophomore attack Matt Comini and freshman attack Thomas Pescatore each had one goal and senior midfielder Alec Oriolo and freshman midfielder Nick Nolder each added one assist.
Senior Kurt Dick recorded 13 saves and six ground balls in the victory while junior long stick midfielder Jimmy Schicke scooped up a team-high eight ground balls to go with a pair of caused turnovers. Senior defender John Polich contributed five ground balls while senior midfielder Rick Guerra was 13-fo-18 on faceoffs to go with four ground balls. Sophomore defender Tanner Leslie and junior midfielder Peter Degnan both had three ground balls.
Moravian had a 42-31 advantage in shots, a 52-22 edge in ground balls, went 3-for-9 in man-up situations and was successful on 13-of-20 clears in the match.
Gozzard opened the scoring with an unassisted tally four minutes into the contest, and he scored off of a pass from Siddron to make it 2-0 just past the midway point of the opening quarter. Siddron and Laratta would add first period goals as the Blue and Grey led 4-0 after 15 minutes of action. Laratta's tally gave him sole possession of the school career goals record at 101.
Siddron pushed the advantage to 5-0 just over a minute into the second quarter before the Monks got on the scoreboard. Comini netted his goal at the midway point of the period and the score remained 6-1 heading into the intermission.
Laratta scored twice in the first three minutes of the second half including one of two man-up goals he had as the Hounds stretched the lead to 9-1. After St. Joseph's scored twice, Laratta and Pescatore each scored. The Monks added a man-up goal with 20 seconds left in the third quarter as Moravian led 11-4 after 45 minutes.
Siddron and Laratta each scored in the final quarter with Laratta netting another man-up goal with 7:26 to play to finish off the scoring.
Moravian is scheduled to return to action on Friday, March 8 when the squad plays Wentworth Institute of Technology at 11:00 a.m. at Northeast Regional Park in Davenport, Florida.
