LAKEWOOD, N.J. – The No. 12 Pace University men's lacrosse had no issues on their trip down to South New Jersey, taking down Georgian Court University, 18-5, Tuesday afternoon.
Pace stay's perfect and improves to 3-0 while Georgian Court falls to 2-3 on the year.
The Setters return to action this weekend when they take to Northwell Stadium on Saturday when they welcome Chestnut Hill College at 12 p.m. for the Headstrong game.
The Blue and Gold scored the first three goals of the game, with
Daniel Zabbia getting the offense started in the first two minutes of the game. The next two goals came off the stick of
Declan Landers, set up by assists from
Caden Hallinan and
Nick Naccarato. The home team got on the board with under a minute left, capitalizing on an extra man opportunity to cut the lead to two entering in the second quarter.
The second quarter scoring featured the two teams' trading extra man opportunity goals, with Pace's
Dominic Veratti netting the first, but GCU got it back thanks to Doug Mackenzie. After another instance of the two team's trading goals, this time even strength goals, Pace created the separation they needed. With just over four minutes left, it was Zabbia who found the back of the cage to get the lead up to three. Less than two minutes later, Veratti took a Landers pass and beat the goalie and the half closed with
Rafael Rodriguez, Jr. netting a goal to give the Blue and Gold an 8-3 lead at the halfway point.
The third quarter was the difference between the two teams. While GCU did score the first goal, Pace scored four answered goals the rest of the way. Landers supplied the spark and
Preston Kral,
Ryan Kemp and
James Mantione netted the final three to take an eight-goal lead, 12-4 entering the final quarter, where the Lions were outscored 6-1 by Pace.
Landers led the offense with four goals and one assist.
Ryan Kemp added two goals of his own while Rodriguez, Jr. Zabbia, Veratti, Kral and Dylan each scored a pair.
Jack Kern only allowed five goals while stopping 15 shots.
Chris Butler,
Chris Caputo and
Colin Reese each caused a pair of turnovers.
