Men’s lacrosse remains dominant, undefeated versus SUNYAC rivals
Geneseo’s men’s lacrosse team traveled to SUNY Plattsburgh and came away with a 21-11 victory on Saturday, Apr. 8 to extend their win streak to five games. The Knights came out firing and jumped to an early lead that could not be surmounted by the Cardinals. They improved their overall season record to 9-3 with the victory while remaining undefeated (3-0) against SUNYAC competition.
The Knights earned the first of their 27 face-offs and scored off of a goal by senior midfielder William McCumiskey within the opening thirty seconds of the game. Junior attacker Robert Boneillo and junior face-off specialist BB Syrop followed suit and put the team up by three just over a minute in. Plattsburgh cut the deficit to two before Boneillo added another and sophomore midfielder Torin Bograd tallied a goal of his own off an assist from sophomore attacker Jimmy Atkinson before the ten-minute mark in the first quarter. Senior attacker Christian Marcello Jr. and Atkinson each scored to put Geneseo up 7-1 before the offenses went quiet for the next six minutes. Junior defender Trevor Bollinger scored his second goal as a Knight before Atkinson finished off the scoring in the first to extend the team’s lead to eight. Geneseo out-shot their opponents 24-4 in the first fifteen minutes of action.
The scoring slowed a bit in the second quarter with the first goal coming over three minutes in by Plattsburgh. Senior attacker Reese Gerlach tallied the Knights’ first goal of the quarter and tenth of the game with the help of an assist from Boneillo with 10:36 left in the half. Atkinson himself recorded his third score of the game just after Plattsburgh scored their third as a team eight minutes in. Senior attacker Brady Sullivan and freshman midfielder Jack Helrigel tallied the team’s 12th and 13th goals before the Cardinals put together another to go into halftime with an insurmountable 13-4 lead.
Plattsburgh put together a scoring play 19 seconds into the second half but could not muster anything else on offense in the third quarter. Geneseo, on the other hand, tacked on another five goals in the period, beginning with Gerlach going back-to-back to score his second and third goals of the game within one minute of each other. Helrigel recorded another for the Knights with just over five minutes remaining to put the team up by 11. Junior long stick midfielder Ethan Cone recorded his second career goal and first of the season just before Atkinson added one more, assisted by Bograd, to give the team a huge 13-goal lead into the final period.
The fourth quarter began with the Cardinals finally finding a sliver of a rally as they scored three straight goals to put them within 10 with under 12 minutes left. After not scoring for nine minutes, freshman attacker Ronnie Trebing contributed with the first goal of his collegiate career to get the Knights’ offense back on track. Plattsburgh strung together another three straight goals to bring the score to 19-11 and the game into its final five minutes. An assist by freshman midfielder Max Espositio allowed junior attacker Kevin Mouton to record his second goal of the season before Ronnie Trebing rang up the game’s final goal off an assist from his twin brother and fellow freshman attacker Ryan Trebing.
Geneseo’s 21-11 victory over Plattsburgh saw 13 different players find the back of the net, with five of them scoring multiple goals. Atkinson led the charge with four goals and an assist while Gerlach added another three scores. Syrop led the team in face-offs with 19 victories out of 21 opportunities while Sullivan, senior Mark Pav, and sophomore Wes Ralph collectively tallied 11 saves for the Knights. As a team, Geneseo recorded more shots (61-40) and ground balls (63-20), while committing fewer turnovers (24-25) than the Cardinals.
The Knights will stay on the road to travel to SUNY Potsdam and face the Bears in another SUNYAC contest on Friday, Apr. 14 before coming home to play against the RIT Tigers on Wednesday, Apr. 19 at College Stadium.