WINTER PARK, Fla. – The Saint Leo lacrosse team capped off their 2009 season with a 16-3 victory over Rollins College in Deep South Conference action at Otey Field on Wednesday evening.
The win closes the Saint Leo regular season out with the Lions 9-3 overall, outdoing last year’s 8-8 campaign and posting the best record in the program’s short history.
Ben Brigham got the scoring going for the Lions with 9:06 left in the first quarter after a superb assist from Joe Guerin. Nick Bova would also score just five minutes later after skipping past his defender on way to the goal.
After the two goals, the next five minutes saw the Lions struggle with turnovers as they found themselves stuck in a defensive battle. The Green & Gold headed into the second quarter with slim two to one lead.
The second quarter would be all Saint Leo. Guerin would continue his own exceptional play by scoring after an assist by Luke Baruch. He would not be done and shortly hit Nick Bova for a lefty high-to-low goal.
Baruch would find Ben Brigham on the crease for the Lions just moments later. Brigham would stay involved for the Lions by hitting the scurrying Ryan Groat in transition and then scoring his own goal to round out the first half.
The third quarter would be much more of the same dominance for the Lions.
Brigham would start the Lions off in the third by shooting a laser at the feet of the Rollins College goalie for the first goal of the half.
Kyle Marceau and Mark Dargon would both notch goals of their own in the third as Saint Leo found themselves playing a man-up for two minutes midway through the third and would tally two goals.
Right after a dominate face-off win by Mike Del Buono, who went an impressive 14-21 on faceoffs for the day, Jake McGuiness would find Baruch for a quick transition goal.
Joe Anderson would round out the scoring for the Lions in the third as he dodged past his defender and nailed a bouncer for a goal.
Brigham would notch two fourth-quarter goals for Lions, one on assist from Baruch.
To put the final touches on the match Mark Walczyk would flip a pass to Anderson for the exclamation point on the record-setting season.
The Lions now await seeding for the Deep South Conference Tournament, which is set to begin April 17th in Wingate, North Carolina and will be hosted by Wingate University.
