Men's Lacrosse

BOSTON, Mass.  – Sophomore midfielder Patrick Tommins (Fairfield, Conn.) recorded a hat trick to lead Norwich University past Emmanuel College, 6-2 March 28. With the victory at EC’s Clemente Field, the Cadets improved to 2-4 on the year and 1-1 in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference.

Norwich opened the game with two scores in the first quarter and never looked back. Junior midfielder Arron Canarelli (New Hartford, N.Y.) opened the game’s scoring with an unassisted tally at the 6:39 mark to make it a 1-0 game before Tommins potted his first goal of the game with just under five minutes to play in the quarter, finishing an assist from senior midfielder Patrick Sikora (Montpelier, Vt.) to make it 2-0.

Emmanuel would cut the lead in half, making it a 2-1 contest when freshman midfielder Jake Jaskolski found sophomore attacker Brian O’Brien for his fifth goal of the campaign with 12:29 left to play in the half. The Cadets answered just 1:15 later as the Tommins-Sikora connection hooked up again to make it a 3-1 contest. Norwich would round out the second quarter scoring as sophomore midfielder Ian Mendoza (Mount Airy, Md.) found the back of the net with an unassisted marker with 2:04 on the clock to give the visitors a 4-1 cushion heading into halftime.

The Saints were able to keep the score at 4-1 for nearly nine minutes of action to open the second half before Norwich got back into the scoring column at the 6:06 mark in the third. Sophomore defenseman Zach Maysonet (Clark, N.J.) forced an EC turnover and then led a Cadet fast break towards the Saints net. The longsticker dumped the ball to a streak Tommins who finished the feed with an over the shoulder shot into the top corner of the net to make it a 5-1 game. Emmanuel would keep pace with NU in the quarter as O’Regan notched his second goal of the night at the 3:27 marker to pull EC back to within three scores at 5-2. Freshman midfielder Jake Pickett started the play by firing a shot that was blocked by a Norwich defender, and O’Regan was able to scoop up the groundball and redeposit it into the back of the net for his sixth score of the season.

EC had every chance to get back into the contest in early in the fourth quarter, as the Cadets were whistled for a pair of 1-minute penalties but the hosts were unable to convert both opportunities. Norwich was able to seal the win with a man-up goal of its own later in the frame to account for the 6-2 final. Mendoza netted his second goal of the match, finishing a feed from sophomore Marco Wiederanders (Denver, Colo.) with 6:38 left to play.

On the game, Emmanuel was 0-5 on the extra-man opportunities, while the Cadets were 1-5 and also owned a commanding 9-3 margin on face-offs won. Freshman goalkeeper Austin Coleman (Vista, Calif.) made four saves in net for Norwich in the opening half to earn his first collegiate victory and improve to 1-1 overall on the year. Fellow freshman keeper Ryan Fecteau (Danvers, Mass.) took over in the second half, making five saves in between the pipes.

Norwich returns to action Thursday, March 29, when they travel to Castleton State. The in-state clash with the Spartans is set for a 7 p.m. start and can be viewed at http://www.nsnsports.net/castleton.