DOYLESTOWN (Pa.) – The Delaware Valley University men's lacrosse team hosted the 20th ranked team in Division III, and Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Freedom foe, Stevens Institute of Technology who proved to be too much as the Aggies fell, 16-5.
DelVal dropped to 1-2 on the year and 0-1 in conference play while the Ducks improved to 1-1 and 1-0 in the conference with the lone less coming at nationally-ranked Stevenson.
Stevens opened the scoring 3:07 in and used a 6-0 first quarter run that grew to an 8-0 lead early in the second quarter.
PJ Rafferty scored his team leading sixth of the season to make it 8-1 with 12:17 left in the half, but Stevens added one more with under a minute remaining, for a 9-1 advantage going into the break.
The Ducks increased their lead to 10 before Ben Napieralski and Dylan Brasch scored back-to-back goals just 46 seconds apart to pull it to 11-3. Stevens added one more goal in the third but the Aggies responded again as Rafferty scored his second of the game, assisted by sophomore Brett Ziegler.
In the final frame, sophomore Travis Berman notched his first career goal but it was not enough as the Ducks outscored the green and gold 4-1 down the stretch to secure the 16-5 MAC Freedom victory.
Stevens finished the game with 27 shots on goal to 15 for the home team. Rafferty finished with two goals and two assists for a team-high four points. Brasch, Napieralski, and Berman all finished the game with one goal. Chris Dearden won 14-of-23 faceoffs and grabbed a team-best 11 ground balls and long pole Sean Mylod followed with eight ground balls to go with two caused turnovers. Jim Murphy went the distance in goal and recorded 16 saves.
Ryan Gebhardt had a game-high eight points with five goals and three assists, and Shawn Coulter picked up six ground balls and four caused turnovers to lead the Ducks. In all, 14 different players registered a point for the visitors while goalkeeper Danny Tierney got the win and made eight saves in 45 minutes of action.
The Aggies will play host to King's College next Wednesday, March 24.
