Pictured Above: Paul DeVita  (Photo by Kostas Lymperopoulos) 

Staten Island, NY – Fifth-year senior midfielder Paul DeVita (Westfield, NJ / Westfield) scored the game-winning goal off an assist from junior attackman Andrew Streilein (Mt. Laurel, NJ / Lenape) 1:52 into the second overtime to lift the Wagner men's lacrosse team to a thrilling 7-6 victory this afternoon at cold and wind-swept Hameline Field.
 
For DeVita, who had two goals on the afternoon, this marked the second time in his career that he has given the Green & White a 7-6 overtime victory. Back on February 26. 2014, he scored with 18 seconds remaining in the fourth overtime period to give the Seahawks a 7-6 decision over Monmouth.
 
With today's win, Wagner improves to 2-3 on the season while the Big Green of the Ivy League fall to 1-2.  
 
The Seahawks led 4-2 at halftime and 6-3 after three quarters before Dartmouth erupted for three unanswered goals in the fourth quarter to send the game into overtime. The teams played a scoreless four-minute first-overtime session before DeVita delivered the game-winner, his second goal of the game, with 3:08 left in the second OT.
 
The first quarter was a scoreless, defensive battle until fifth-senior midfielder William McMenamin (Longport, NJ / St. Augustine prep) buried one from in close off the first of three assists from freshman attackman Nic Ancona (Warrenton, PA / Paul VI), to give the Seahawks a 1-0 lead.
 
The Seahawks opened the second quarter with a gorgeous behind the back score from junior attackman Billy Martin (Huntington, NY / Huntington) off an Ancona feed to make it 2-0 with 11:23 left in the opening half. Less than three minutes later, at the 8:45 mark of the second quarter, DeVita scored his first goal, a man-up score off of Ancona's third assist, to make it a 3-0 game.
 
After the teams traded goals, with Wagner's coming on an unassisted blast from 15 yards out by junior midfielder Joe Lomeli (Clark, NJ / A.L. Johnson / NJIT), the Seahawks had a three-goal cushion again at 4-1 midway through the second quarter. That's the way the score remained until Dartmouth's Jack Korzelius buried an unassisted goal off a loose ball scramble with just 21 seconds remaining in the half to make it 4-2 at the intermission.
 
Korzelius' second score of the game, with 12:32 to go in the third, sliced the deficit to 4-3 before Ancona notched his fourth point of the contest, just 56 seconds later, finding the back of the net off a feed from junior midfielder JP Pawela (Montgomery Village, MD / St. John's College), to up the Seahawk lead back to two at 5-3.
 
The teams then played nearly 10 minutes of scoreless lacrosse before Streilein worked his way in close for an unassisted tally with 45 seconds left in the quarter, to put Wagner in front 6-3 heading to the fourth. The final stanza was all Dartmouth as the Big Green scored three times in less than a two-minute span, with two coming from Ben Martin, whose second score tied the game at 6-6 with 7:58 to play.
 
This would prove to be the last goal either team would score until DeVita's game-winner, a tally that snapped a stretch of 21:37 minutes without a score (since Streilein's goal with 45 seconds left in the third).
 
The overtime was not without its share of tense moments for the Seahawks as Wagner opened the first OT a man down following a one-minute slashing penalty on fifth-year senior defenseman Daniel Valencia (Gaithersburg, MD / Gaithersburg ) just as the horn was sounding to end regulation. On the EMO, the Big Green nearly won it 12 second into the overtime but Martin, in trying to deke Sefcik from right in front of the goal, hit the post on his shot and the Seahawks were able to gain possession and kill the remaining 48 seconds of the penalty.  
 
Dartmouth, which was led by two goals apiece by Korzelius and Martin, outshot Wagner 40-31 and held a 32-27 edge in groundballs. The teams were dead even on faceoffs with both squads going 8-of-16 in the X.
 
Sophomore goalie Matt Sefcik (Towaco, NJ / Morristown Beard) recorded nine saves in notching the win while Dartmouth's George Christopher came up with 13 saves in defeat.
 
Wagner is right back at it on Tuesday, March 7 when the Green & White host VMI. Opening Faceoff between the Seahawks and the Keydets is set for 4:00 p.m.