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Pictured Above: Junior goalie Anthony Peruso had a career-high 15 saves vs. Monmouth (Photo by Jim O'Connor)West Long Branch, NJ – The Wagner men's lacrosse team delivered a sound, defensive performance but the Seahawks struggled to generate a consistent offensive flow in dropping a 7-3 decision at Monmouth along the snowy Jersey Shore on Tuesday.
The Green & White, who were hoping to build on the momentum from Saturday's 14-6 victory at UMass Lowell, trailed by just a 3-2 count at halftime following first-half goals by freshman midfielder
Billy Orme (Great Falls, VA/Langley), off an assist from fellow freshman midfielder J.P Pawela (Montgomery Village, MD / St. John's College) and jan unassisted goal by unior midfielder
Paul DeVita (Westfield, NJ/Westfield).
The third quarter maintained the same defensive theme, as the Hawks outscored Wagner 2-0 in the stanza and led 7-2 freshman attackman
Andrew Streilein (Mt. Laurel, NJ/Lenape), the reigning Northeast Conference (NEC) Rookie of the Week, netted a goal with 1:31 left to play, after receiving a feed from junior attaclman
Billy Battaglia (Madison, NJ/Madison), in fashioning the final score at 7-3.
Seahawk junior goalie
Anthony Peruso (Warwick, NY/John S. Burke Catholic) was active in goal, keeping the Seahawks in the game throughout in recording 15 saves, while senior defenseman
Matt Bunting (Wyckoff, NJ/Ramapo) scooped up a team-high five ground balls.
Tyler Keen had a trick for Monmouth, a second-year Division I program, which has now won two straight games following Saturday's 10-9 upset at Rutgers. Eric Berger distributed a pair of assists for the Hawks, while senior goalkeeper Garrett Conaway came up with nine saves, allowing just the three goals, while facing 26 shots.
Keen netted his first goal to open the scoring, giving the Hawks a 1-0 edge just 1:39 into the affair, before Wagner tied the game at 1-1 with 5:56 remaining the period on Orme's score. With Wagner trailing 2-1, DeVita's knotted the game at 2-2 with 9:17 left in the first half before Keen's second unassisted score gave the Hawks a 3-2 lead at the intermission.
Monmouth doubled its advantage to 4-2 at 9:47 of the third on a Bryce Wasserman score and the Hawks, who limited Wagner to just three shots in the third period, pushed its lead to 5-2 with 4:24 showing as Chris Daly found Keen for the hat trick tally.
Berger assisted on fourth quarter goals by senior Zach Johannes and Chris Summer, the latter making it a 7-2 game with with 6:52 left.
Monmouth outshot Wagner 32-26, held a slim 20-18 edge in ground balls while winning 9-of-13 faceoffs.
The Seahawks are back in action on Saturday, March 7 when they host Ivy League member Dartmouth with faceoff at Hameline Field set for 1:00 p.m.
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