GAMBIER, Ohio – With Wednesday evening's 15-4 dismantling of the Allegheny College Gators, the Kenyon College Lords lacrosse team improved to 4-0 overall, 3-0 in the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) and clinched the conference's East Division title.
Kenyon has two more regular-season games left on its schedule. Regardless of those two outcomes, the Lords play against the West Division winner in the conference championship final, slated to take place Saturday, May 8.
Back on The Field at Benson Bowl, the Lords dominated all facets of their game with Gators. On the offensive end,
Mike Asuncion,
Declan Curry and
Mike Matteo each turned in five-point games. Asuncion had four goals and an assist, while both Curry and Matteo rang up three goals and two assists.
Weston Powell and
Joe Boesel, who entered the game as the Lords' top point-getters, each logged a pair of goals and an assist.
Kenyon didn't waste any time in taking over the game. Curry scored two first-quarter goals to help the Lords build a 4-0 lead after the first 15 minutes of play. Curry then scored the first goal of the second quarter and his teammates followed six consecutive scores to gain a huge 11-0 advantage.
Meanwhile, the Kenyon defense was holding up its end of the deal, too. The Lords didn't allow Allegheny's first goal until there was 2:46 remaining in the first half. As a unit, the defense also held the Gators to 19 shots on goal, forced 20 turnovers and stopped nine of 28 Allegheny clearing attempts.
At the back end of the Kenyon defense, goalkeeper
David Metzger was credited with a dozen saves. Back-up keeper
Mayo Amorello came in to play a majority of the fourth quarter and made three saves.
The Lords took their foot off the gas in the second half, but still managed to outscore the Gators 4-3 over the final 30 minutes of play. Two of the four Allegheny goals scored occurred in man-up situations and three were scored with less than 10 minutes left in the game.
The loss dropped Allegheny to 2-3 overall and 2-3 within NCAC action. The Gators will get another shot at Kenyon on Sunday, when they host the Lords in a 1 p.m. game at Fuhrer Field.
