Men's Lacrosse opens season with 12-9 loss to Mitchell

New London, CT-- Mitchell College outscored the MCLA Men's Lacrosse team 7-1 over the middle two quarters as they rallied past the Trailblazers 12-9 in non league action this afternoon.  The Mariners earn their first win of the season and are now 1-1.  The match was the season opener for MCLA and they're now 0-1.

The Trailblazers came out with energy as they led 2-0 early on.  Goals from Tom Irwin and John Hankel gave them the boost just five minutes into the contest.  The teams would swap goals the rest of the quarter and MCLA led 5-3 after one.

MCLA took their largest lead of the afternoon when Hankel converted again with twelve minutes before halftime to lead 6-3.  From there, the hosts would outscore MCLA 4-0 to close the quarter as Ethan LePain would collect two goals and an assist in the spurt.  Mitchell would take the 7-6 lead into halftime.

The Mariners would continue to clamp down on the MCLA offense and gradually create some separation.  LePain would score again early in the third and goals from Dominick Reposa and James Giovanniello made it 10-6 in favor of Mitchell heading to the fourth quarter.

Another marker from Giovanniello gave the hosts an 11-6 edge before MCLA finally got some offense going.  Matthew Wallace scored back to back goals to get within 11-8 and when Nathan Haley converted a Johnny Hebert feed, it was 11-9 with still five minutes left to play.

Mitchell would ice the game when Aidan Messuri netted another goal with just 1:38 left to account for the final margin.

Messuri led all scorers with 4 goals on 15 shots for the Mariners.  Steven Turchetta earned the win in goal by stopping 6 shots in the opening half of play.  John Grieco collected three saves in the second half to keep MCLA at bay.

MCLA was paced by Haley's three goals while Brady Larkin stopped 16 shots in net.

Mitchell owned a 50-34 edge in shots and was the beneficiary of 36 Trailblazer turnovers.