GAMBIER, Ohio – The Kenyon College Lords lacrosse team was flagged for five first-half penalties Wednesday, giving the visiting Denison University Big Red all the momentum it needed. Three of those five penalties turned into man-up goals for the Big Red, which left McBride Field with a 17-6 North Coast Athletic Conference victory.

Denison (10-3, 5-1 NCAC), a team that just slipped out of the Top-20 national ranking earlier this week, scored the first eight goals of the game and never looked back. Sophomore midfielder Jamie McCahan got the Big Red started with the team's first three goals. Nick Caravana and Nick Bortolani both added a goal and the Big Red held a 5-0 lead after one quarter of play.

Three more Denison goals followed to start the second quarter and it wasn't until the 11:32 mark that Kenyon finally broke through. That's when sophomore Alex Lopez netted an unassisted goal, his 23rd of the season. Lopez scored again later in the quarter, but the Big Red marched into halftime with 10-2 advantage.

Kenyon (8-6, 4-3 NCAC) never got closer than eight goals the rest of the way. James Meager matched McCahan's three-goal output and Liam Rooney led all scorers with four goals for Denison. On the other side of the field, Robert Jacobs and Lopez both finished with two goals, while Nick Lenard and J.T. Meyer had single tallies for Kenyon. Lenard and Meyer also had an assist apiece.

Patrick Shevelson, Kenyon's starting goalkeeper, did not have his best day. He played about 20 minutes, made three saves, and uncharacteristically allowed eight goals before giving way to sophomore Gabriel Avis, who finished off the game making a dozen saves and allowing nine goals. Denison also used two keepers with starter Clark Bullington getting the bulk of the workload. He combined with back-up Chris Thomas to make 15 saves.

Denison held a slight 46-38 advantage in shots and a much larger differential in groundballs (44-24). The Big Red won 15-of-26 face-offs and ended up going 3-of-7 in man-up situations. Kenyon shot itself in the foot with a total of six penalties for six minutes. Denison had only two simultaneous penalties that spanned one minute.

Even though it wasn't the outcome the Lords had in mind, the team still remains in good shape to lock up the fourth and final seed in the upcoming NCAC postseason tournament. A win at Hiram College (3-9, 1-6 NCAC) Saturday will do just that.