Men's Lacrosse Advances with 12-1 GNAC Quarterfinal Victory over Rivier

NEWTON, Mass. (4/23/14) – The second-seeded Lasell College men's lacrosse team used a stout defense and collective offensive effort to defeat  seventh-seeded Rivier University 12-1 in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference quarterfinals on Wednesday afternoon at Grellier Field. Lasell improved to 11-5 on the season while Rivier closed their campaign with an 8-8 record.

Andrew Suh (Colchester, Conn.) tallied three goals and two assists, Casey Sullivan (Waterford, Conn.) netted three goals and one assist, while Dylan Gray (Bayport, N.Y.) and Aaron LaPorte (Gorham, Maine) each scored twice in the victory. Junior goalkeeper David Walen (Longmeadow, Mass.) stopped 14 of the 15 shots on goal he faced earning the victory in the cage.

Danny Hooper (Wakefield, R.I.) scored the lone goal for Rivier while Tom Johnson (Londonderry, N.H.) recorded an assist. Clark Plummer (Londonderry, N.H.) made eight saves for the Raiders while taking the loss on the afternoon.

Lasell jumped out to an early 1-0 lead on an unassisted goal by Aaron LaPorte just 40 seconds into the opening quarter of action. Andrew Suh tallied his first goal of the game just over five minutes into the quarter on a feed from Pat Egan (Glen Rock, N.J.), making it a 2-0 Lasers lead. Suh then found Dylan Gray for a 3-0 Lasell lead with 6:30 left in the opening period. Tom Johnson found Danny Hooper on the crease during the Raiders first man-up chance of the game to trim the Lasers lead to 3-1 heading into the second quarter. An unassisted goal by Casey Sullivan with 12:28 left in the half put Lasell in front 4-1, and the Lasers defense took over. Lasell held the GNAC's top man-up unit without a goal, killing off a three minute illegal crosse penalty, a minute and fifteen seconds of which saw Rivier with a two-man advantage, allowing Lasell to take a 4-1 lead into the intermission.

Casey Sullivan scored on a feed from Dylan Gray just over two minutes into the third quarter to put Lasell on top 5-1 and the Lasers made it 6-1 when Egan found LaPorte for a man-up goal with just over eight minutes left in the third period. Lasell continued to control the action, using an unassisted goal by Gray and a goal by Suh in the final two minutes of the third quarter to take an 8-1 lead into the fourth quarter. Lasell added four more goals in the fourth period to produce the final 12-1 margin and advance to the GNAC semifinals.

Lasell will host third-seeded Becker College on Friday April 25^th at 3:30 p.m., Becker advanced with a 9-5 victory over St. Joseph's College of Maine in their quarterfinal match-up. Lasell defeated Becker 11-7 earlier in the season, while the Hawks knocked Lasell from the GNAC playoffs a year ago, 12-8.