GLENSIDE (Pa.) – In the seventh annual Battle for the Bux-Mont Hammer rivalry game, host Arcadia University retained the hammer as it scored seven unanswered goals to earn a 14-9 Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Freedom victory over the visiting Delaware Valley University men's lacrosse team.
It was the final day of the regular season in MAC Freedom men's lacrosse play as the Aggies finished 5-6 overall and 3-4 in league play. Their .429 win percentage in conference games earned them the fifth-seed heading into the MAC Freedom tournament, and await the official seeding's to see who the face in the conference quarterfinals.
With the win, the Knights finished the regular season 7-5 overall and 6-2 in MAC Freedom play and will enter the tournament as the third-seed, likely to face Wilkes University in the first round.
Arcadia got on the board first in today's game, but it was DelVal that dominated the first quarter, outscoring the home team, 7-2. PJ Rafferty had five points in the first stanza alone with a goal and four assists and Brett Ziegler found the back of the net twice.
The Knights outplayed the Aggies in the second, but the Aggies maintained a two-goal lead at the break, 8-6. Alex Gundersen scored the lone goal for DelVal in the second quarter off a feed from Ben Napieralski.
Out of the break, it was all Arcadia as the home team outscored the Aggies, 8-1 over the final 30 minutes of play including seven unanswered tallies and two man-up goals to close the game.
The Knights had 34 shots on goal in the game compared to 24 for DelVal and faceoffs were 18-9 in favor of the home team. Man-up, the Aggies were 0-for-6 while Arcadia cashed in twice on eight opportunities.
Rafferty had a game-high six points on a goal and five assists and Ziegler finished with three goals while Napieralski dished out a pair of assists. Matt Waibel, Dylan Brasch, Sean Mylod, and Chris Dearden each scored once. Dearden and Mylod each scooped six ground balls while Michael Florig and Luke Kelchner led the team with three caused turnovers apiece. Jim Murphy went the distance in goal and made a career-high 20 saves.
Arcadia's Clo Muscara led the team with four goals as five players had multi-point games. Brett Sciascia went 15-for-20 at the faceoff-x and two goalies combined for 15 saves in the win.
