Riverdale, NY – The Wagner men's lacrosse team overcame a five goal first-half deficit to forge a 13-13 tie after regulation before Manhattan's Parker Giarratana sank the game-winning goal 23 seconds into the third overtime session, lifting the Jaspers to a 14-13 win in the Seahawks' season opener this afternoon.
The Green & White will look to even their mark at 1-1 on Friday, February 17 when the Seahawks play host to the Lafayette Leopards in a 4:00 p.m. matchup in the home opener at Hameline Field. With the win, Manhattan evens its record at 1-1 in facing their second straight Northeast Conference (NEC) opponent as the Jaspers dropped a 17-10 decision to Bryant last weekend.
Junior
Joe Lomeli (Clark, NJ / Arthur L. Johnson), a transfer from NJIT who shares the same high school alma mater as Wagner sixth-year head coach
Matt Poskay, recorded a hat trick while adding an assist in his first game as a Seahawk while fifth-year senior midfielders
Paul DeVita (Westfield, NJ / Westfield) and
Patrick McMenamin (Longport, NJ / St. Augustine prep) added two goals apiece. McMenamin also added an assist to finish the day with three points.
Wagner displayed excellent offensive balance in the 2017 lid-lifter as nine different Seahawks found the back of the net on the afternoon. In addition to the three multi-goal scorers, five other Seahawks tallied a single goal apiece in junior attackman
Andrew Streilein (Mt. Laurel, NJ . Lenape), freshmen midfielder
Dominic Branda (Ringwood, NJ / Don Bosco Prep), junior defenseman
Andrew Park (Kinnelon, NJ / Kinnelon), junior midfielder
JP Pawela (Montgomery Village, MD / St. John's College) and freshman midfielder
Nick Ancona (Warrenton, PA / Paul VI).
Both Streilein and Ancona also dished out one assist in finishing with two points apiece. In goal, sophomore
Matt Sefcik (Towaco, NJ / Morristown-Beard), a member of the 2016 NEC All-Rookie Team, was credited with 13 saves.
After Manhattan jumped out on top 1-0, Wagner countered with two consecutive scores. The first goal of the 2017 campaign was an unassisted tally out of the stick of Lomeli which was followed shortly by a Branda score that gave the Seahawks a 2-1 lead three minutes into the game.
With Wagner down 4-3 after one quarter, the Jaspers opened the second quarter on a 5-1 run, capped by a man-up goal by Giarratana, that gave Manhattan its biggest lead of the game at 9-4. This score made it four straight goals for the Jaspers. While Manhattan was looking to blow the game wide open before halftime, the Seahawks had other ideas, uncorking goals by
Patrick McMenamin and Park in the final 3:19 of the half to narrow the deficit to 9-6 at the intermission.
DeVita opened the second half with an unassisted score at the 10:49 mark to make it a 3-0 run and a two-goal game at 9-7. After Joseph Bressingham scored to give Manhattan 10-7 lead, the Seahawks answered with three straight goals in the final 4:53 of the quarter, on scores by senior midfielder
Christian McCormick (Royersford, PA / Spring-Ford), Ancona (Park assist) and DeVita (P. McMenamin assist), the latter coming with 25 seconds left in the quarter to make it a 10-10 game entering the fourth.
The teams traded goals for the better part of the fourth quarter until Lomeli notched the final equalizer of regulation with a score at the 4:48 mark to make it a 13-13 game.
The teams then went scoreless over the final 4:48, entering overtime knotted at 13 apiece. After playing two consecutive four-minute overtime sessions, Giarratana broke what was a 13:13 scoreless string with his unassisted game winner just 23 seconds into the third OT.
The game-winning goal was Giarratana's third of the game and, along with two assists, gave him a game-high five points. Trevor Pelletier and Matt Garvery also had hat tricks for the Jaspers, who received 16 saves in goal from Michael Zingaro.
Wagner held a sizeable 47-32 edge in shots and led by a narrow 43-42 margin in groundballs. Manhattan won 21-of-32 faceoffs but turned the ball over 28 times while the Seahawks had just 13 turnovers. Neither team could get untracked in man-up opportunities as the Jaspers were 1-of-5 on EMOs while the Seahawks were 0-of-7.
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