WESTON, Mass. – Regis College put together one of its best offensive performances of the season, but a couple of quick scoring runs by Rivier University were enough for the Raiders to defeat the Pride, 15-10, Tuesday night in a Great Northeast Athletic Conference men's lacrosse match at Regis Stadium.
Brian Wagner (Melrose, Mass.) led the Pride with a season-high four goals along with an assist. Michael Tremblay (Arlington, Mass.) also notched a hat trick with three goals, plus he added an assist, while Michael Daras (Danvers, Mass.) finished with two goals and two assists.
Rivier (11-3, 5-3 GNAC) scored first less than two minutes into the contest as Dylan McSparren notched an unassisted goal. Regis tied the match with 9:01 left in the first quarter as Wagner notched his 12th goal of the season.
The Raiders took control with three unanswered goals, starting with McSparren's second tally of the match, followed by goals from Colby Larsen and Rob Fullerton. Rocco Geary (Salem, Mass.) picked up his second goal of the season with 1:07 remaining in the period, but Rivier was able to strike right before the end of the opening quarter as Raider goalie Matt Cloutman set up Larsen's second goal of the night.
The teams traded goals through most of the second quarter, including two more goals by McSparren for Rivier as well as Pride tallies by Daras, Tremblay, and Wagner. The Raiders would extend their lead to 9-5 by halftime on consecutive goals by Eric Guinasso in the span of 80 seconds.
Rivier continued to apply the offensive pressure, scoring three straight goals to start the third quarter thanks to tallies by Fullerton, Nick Ackerman, and Guinasso. Wagner broke the Raider streak with his third goal of the match off an assist by Tremblay.
In the fourth quarter, the two teams once again went back and forth, starting with a McSparren goal being answered by Wagner's fourth goal of the night. Chris Pennie scored for Rivier midway through the period, but Daras responded 59 seconds later with his second tally of the contest.
As time wound down, Daras would assist on a goal by Tremblay, but this time Rivier quickly answered 13 seconds later, as the ball found McSparren and he found the net for another goal. Although they were a man down, Regis would score again as the Daras-Tremblay combination worked one more time, accounting for the final goal of the night.
McSparren finished with six goals and one assist, plus he picked up three ground balls, while Guinasso earned three goals for a hat trick. Fullerton contributed two goals and one assist, Larsen also scored two goals, and Jacob Enwright led the Raiders with eight ground balls as Rivier controlled that statistic, 40-24.
Each team committed 22 turnovers, many of them unforced errors as Rivier caused just nine turnovers and Regis was credited with seven caused turnovers, three of them by Logan Bateman (Claremont, N.H.). Pride goalie JJ LaRose (Litchfield, N.H.) collected 11 saves, the fourth time this season he finished with 10 or more saves in a match, while Cloutman ended up with eight saves to go along with his assist.
Rivier will be the fourth seed in the GNAC Tournament and will host the fifth seed in a quarterfinal match Saturday, April 27.
Regis (3-8, 0-8 GNAC) finishes ninth in the conference standings and will not advance to the postseason tournament.