Potsdam, N.Y.- A stellar all-around display from offense to defense in the first half, lifted the Clarkson University Men's Lacrosse team to a 17-5, non-league victory, Saturday afternoon against visiting SUNY Geneseo.
The Green and Gold improve to 3-2 on the year and will visit Plattsburgh State next Wednesday, March 12th for another non-conference contest. Geneseo drops to 0-4 overall.
Successful faceoffs are an area that have plagued the visitors and that continued to be the case from the opening whistle. Connor Matthews would get Clarkson on the board first at the 12:06 mark, opening the gates for a Clarkson attack that Geneseo would not have an answer for in the first half. Three straight goals from Alex Seiler bumped the lead to 4-0 before goals from Logan Wilkinson and Alex Alfieri stretched the lead to 6-0 as the end of the opening 15 minutes approached. Clarkson dominated the face-off circle, not allowing Geneseo to win a center duel until after the sixth goal had already been scored with less than a minute remaining.
The second quarter began in similar fashion with Logan Wilkinson winning the opening draw, leading to Ethan Hopkins tacking on Clarkson's seventh goal of the game just over three minutes in. An even-strength and man-up goal from Sam Mancabelli pushed the lead to 9-0 while a goal apiece from Andrew Kearney and Matthews, less than a minute apart, saw Clarkson build a double-digit advantage at 11-0. With halftime closing in, Geneseo was finally able to string some passing together and get past the Clarkson defense as Riley Henselder managed to find a gap for the visitors first goal of the contest, with 52 seconds remaining in the quarter.
Into the third, the Golden Knights rattled off four more straight tallies in quick succession. Seiler, Alfieri, Kearney and Matthews all would find the back of the net, with all four goals coming within less than a three minute window as the game threatened to turn into a blowout in favor of Clarkson. Determined not to let that happen, Geneseo managed to demonstrate some fight, closing out the third with two goals of their own about 30 seconds apart as the lead was cut to 15-3 headed into the final stanza.
Two more goals from the visitors to open up the fourth brought the score back to 15-5 with 12:32 remaining. Clarkson would go on to register the last two tallies of the contest, courtesy of Robert Fox and another Hopkins score, to give Clarkson the 17-5 lead for the win.
Clarkson would hold the edge in almost all statistical categories, including shots (62-19), shots on goal (36-16) and ground balls (44-19) while commanding face-offs with a 21-4 advantage. The defense was an all-around effort from the Golden Knights, forcing Geneseo to make 19 turnovers on the day.
In goal, Griffin Emerson picked up the win with nine saves as Eric Gellasch combined with him, stopping two shots in just over six minutes in a relief performance. Andrew Tittman and Wes Ralph saw time in goal for Geneseo with Tittman picking up seven saves and the loss while Ralph made 12 stops.
