SALEM, Mass. – Eight players recorded their first career points as the Eastern Connecticut State University men's lacrosse team scored the first 16 goals of the match and went on to a 27-8 victory over Salem State University in the Little East Conference opener for both teams Saturday afternoon at O'Keefe Field.
Eastern (3-4) outshot Salem (4-3), 25-49, more than doubled the Vikings' ground ball total and won 29 of 39 faceoffs in remaining undefeated (19-0) all-time against Salem.
Thirty-one players saw time for Eastern, with 14 of them chipping in at least one goal and 17 contributing at least one point. First-year players
Nathan Houggy (Waterford) and
Jason Ioli (Trumbull) each had four points in their first career matches. Ioli scored four times and Houggy had two goals and two assists.
In addition to Ioli and Houggy, also recording their first career goals were first-year players
Sean Ventresca (Montville), Ethan May (Trumbull) and
Rick O'Neal (East Hartford) and junior
Jonathan Bernier (Somers). With assists, junior defenseman
David Marciczkiewicz (Stamford) and first-year midfielder
Quincy Foren (Waterford) both checked in with their first career points. Junior
Mitchell Babcal (South Windsor) added his first two goals of this season.
Team season scoring leader
Quinn O'Connor (Glastonbury), a first-year player coming off a five-goal performance against Roger Williams, led Eastern with eight points on three goals and five assists, with first-year attackman
Brycen Kenndy (Southington), whose OT goal defeated Roger Williams, adding three goals and an assist.
Sophomore
David Harrold (Southington), who won 15 of 26 faceoffs in Wednesday's double-overtime home win over Roger Williams University, was 15-of-20 from the faceoff X against Salem and picked up ten ground balls to improve his season faceoff percentage to .459. O'Neal won 14 of 17 faceoffs and commanded six ground balls to up his season FO percentage to .590 on 39 attempts.
All-LEC long stick midfielder
Domenic Scarano (Berlin) caused six turnovers and won seven ground balls, with junior defenseman
Ryan Stocks (Longmeadow, MA) also corralling seven ground balls.
Junior
Nick Collazo (Park Ridge, NJ) won his second straight start in net, stopping 14 shots. He kept the Vikings off the board until only 18 seconds remained in the first half.
The team goal total is five shy of the match record set against Maine Maritime Academy in 2000 and matched against Salem State in the third season of LEC competition in 2003.
Eastern hosts Clark University Wednesday at 6 p.m. before the Warriors close out the LEC regular season with seven straight conference matches. The Warriors and Cougars have each won one match in the series, Clark winning, 12-8, in 2019 at Worcester, MA.
