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Philaelphia, PA – Saint Joseph's and Wagner battled to a 1-1 after one quarter of play before the Hawks scored eight consecutive second-quarter goals in building a 9-1 halftime lead en route to a 14-3 Northeast Conference (NEC) victory over the Seahawks in men's lacrosse action at rainy Sweeney Field tonight.
 
In dropping their second straight game, which came on the heels of Saturday's tough 5-3 home loss to Bryant, the Seahawks fall to 4-6 on the season and 1-2 in league play. In winning their fourth consecutive game, the Hawks improve to 7-5 overall and 3-0 in the NEC, which puts SJU in a fist-place tie with Wagner's next opponent, Hobart, who the Seahawks will face on Saturday.
 
This game was scoreless until SJU's Pat Swanick knocked home a goal off of a Mike Rastivo assist to put the Hawks in front 1-0 with 5:19 left in the opening quarter. Just 1:10 seconds later, the Seahawks answered with an unassisted goal out of the stick of freshman midfielder JP Pawela (Montgomery Village, MD/St. John's College) at the 4:09 mark of the first period.
 
Saint Joe's opened the second quarter with a quick 4-0 run, in the span of 2:30, in opening a 5-1 lead with 12:07 remaining in the half. The Hawks then reeled off another four answered goals, including three consecutive scores by Rastivo, in completing the 8-0 run and building their 9-1 lead at the intermission.
 
Swanick, who scored the last goal of the opening half, then opened the second half with a score at the 10:47 mark to make it a 10-1 lead before Pawela stemmed the tide with his second goal, another unassisted tally, which cut the deficit to 10-2 with 8:24 left in the third quarter.
 
Saint Joe's then countered with four straight goals, bridging the third and fourth quarters, to make it 14-2 before senior attackman David DeCirce (Clarence, NY/Clarence) completed the night's scoring with goal , which came with 52 seconds left to play, off of an assist from senior attackman Spencer Macquarrie (Doylestown, PA/Central Bucks West).
 
Swanick paced the Hawks with four goals while Rastivo added three goals and one assist. Mike Lanham won 9-of-16 faceoffs for St. Joe's, defenseman Kevin Forster had three causes turnovers while goalie T.J. Jones had five saves in goal.
 
Pawela led Wagner with two goals, DeCirce had one while Macquarrie tallied one assist. Junior defenseman Daniel Valencia (Gaithersburg, MD/Gaithersburg) led the Seahawks in ground balls and caused turnovers with four and two, respectively. In goal, senior Anthony Peruso (Warwick, NY/John S. Burke Catholic) was busy all night, registering a career-high 19 saves in the face of an onslaught of 33 shots on goal.

Freshman midfielder Brian Hadley (Summit, NJ/Summit) continued to hold his own in the X, winning 4-of-9 faceoffs while sopomore Anthony Labetti (Moorestown, NJ/Moorestown) was a perfect 3-of-3 in the faceoff circle.
 
Overall, the Hawks outshot Wagner 44-16, and led in ground balls 36-22, while forcing the Seahawks into committing 20 turnovers as the Green & White were successful on just 8-of-18 clears.
 
Wagner is next in action on Saturday, April 11 when the Seahawks travel to Geneva, NY to meet Hobart in a 1:00 p.m. NEC matchup. The Statesmen are tied with Saint Joseph's for the NEC lead at 3-0 and are 6-3 overall, following Saturday's 13-5 win at Sacred Heart.
 
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