PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y. – On a beautiful Wednesday afternoon at Northwell Stadium, the No. 8 Pace University men's lacrosse team, and the No. 10 Mercyhurst University Lakers battled in the North Region First Round of the NCAA Division II Men's Lacrosse Championships. It was a 60-minute battle, but with the dust settled, Pace earned the right to advance, in no small part due to the efforts of FOGO Maxwell Streety,

Pace will now renew their rivalry with Adelphi University, the top seed in the region, on Sunday in Garden City, N.Y at 1 p.m.

The Blue and Gold earned the first goal of the game, with Colin Reese racing towards the net and firing the ball into the back of the cage 2 minutes into the contest. The Lakers responded with two goals of their own to gain an advantage. The two teams traded goals the rest of the way in the first but the one-goal Laker advantage would hold until the 4:06 mark thanks to a goal from Luke Ingianni got it up to two goals, 5-3, a score that would stand for the rest of the first quarter.

Mercyhurst struck first to grow the lead to three, 6-3, but Pace's offense got to work right after. Streety won the ensuing meeting at the X and took it himself and buried a shot to get the offense going. Just under two minutes later, Daniel Zabbia connected with Dominic Veratti to cut the lead to one, 6-5. Zabbia got on the other side of the offense, scoring the tying goal with 5:35 left in the second half.

In the third Rafael Rodriguez, Jr. worked through contact, which drew a flag, and beat the goalie to the far post with 6:57 left in the third, which cut the lead back down to one, 8-7. Behind Streety dominating the face off X, Pace started to rattle off goals. Ryan Kemp and Zabbia scoring within seven seconds of each other to take the lead, a lead that would not be relinquished, 9-8. The home team scored one more time, Kemp scored with 12 seconds left to take a 10-8 lead into the final quarter.

Pace put the Lakers away in the final quarter. After Mercyhurst scored and looked for momentum, Streety won another face off and did himself to get the goal back. That triggered four answered goals which was capped off by Streety again finding the back of the cage.

The goalkeeping this afternoon on both sides was immaculate as Jack Kern battled Brett Olney. Both goalies locked down the pipes, with Kern making 11 saves and Onley making seven.

Streety was the hero this afternoon, owning the face off X, going 21-29 while corralling 12 ground balls and burying four goals and handing out one assist.