NEW LONDON, Conn. --  Freshmen Camden Brown (Southington) and Zacharie Appolon (Stamford) combined for eight points in their collegiate debut and five players combined to win 21 of 26 faceoffs as the Eastern Connecticut State University men's lacrosse team routed Mitchell College, 19-4, in its 2021 non-conference season-opener Tuesday afternoon.
 
The season-opening win is the third in as many years for Eastern under third-year head coach Marc Graham. The Warriors and Mariners (0-1) were meeting for only second time, the previous meeting coming 15 years ago when Eastern posted a 25-1 victory at New London.
 
Brown connected on five goals on 14 shots as Eastern compiled a 66-19 advantage  in shots and nearly doubled Mitchell's ground ball total with a 60-33 advantage. Eastern's man-down defense killed six of seven penalties while the Warriors capitalized three times on four extra-man opportunities.
 

Eight different players chipped in points, seven of them scoring at least one goal.
 
Twice, Brown scored consecutive goals. He closed out the first quarter with his first career goal to give his team a 6-1 lead after 15 minutes, then opened the second with his second. He also scored twice in a row in the final six minutes of the first half to give the Warriors a 10-2 cushion at the break, and closed it out with his fifth goal on an assist from Appolon in the final two minutes. Sophomore Shane Haggerty (Stamford), who had three goals and five assists as a freshman in last year's two-game season, also connected twice in succession midway through the first period and against early in the fourth. He finished with four goals on 11 shots.
 
Appolon recorded his first career goal to close out the scoring with just over a minute left after contributing two second-half assists.
 
Active career scoring leader Jake Liebowitz (Trumbull) led Eastern with six points on two goals and four assists and junior Payten Nevins (Hamden) matched Brown  with five points (three goals, two assists) on 12 shots.
 
Eastern scored on its first two shots of the season, with senior Kyle Cardoza (Waterford) beating Mitchell goalie Marcel Quinlan (20 saves) off the opening faceoff that was won by senior tri-captain Tyler Stein (Milford). Stein also picked up the ground ball after winning the second faceoff and after an exchange of turnovers, Liebowitz cashed in with his 40^th career goal on a man-up opportunity three minutes into play.
 
Brown, Nevins, Haggerty and Cardoza combined for 45 shots (68 percent of the team's overall total attempts).
 
Senior tri-captain and defenseman Tyler Koppy (Attleboro, MA), the active career ground ball and caused turnover leader, led both teams with nine ground balls and six caused turnovers.  Stein won six of seven faceoffs and scooped up six ground balls and freshman David Harrold (Southington) commanded  seven of ten faceoffs and corralled six ground balls. Sophomore defenseman Ryan Stocks (Longmeadow, MA) won four ground balls and caused four turnovers.
 

Graduate student Jack Farrell (Stratford) and senior John Funk (Southbury) split time in goal, Farrell making three saves in his 19^th consecutive start to push his career record to 10-9. Funk stopped five shots.
 
Eastern visits University of Saint Joseph (CT) Friday at 5 p.m.