Doylestown (Pa.) – The Delaware Valley University men's lacrosse team got back to its winning ways thanks to a career-best four-goal game from sophomore Cole Graeff en route to an 11-5 non-conference victory over visiting Cairn University.
The win improved the Aggies to 4-5 in non-conference play as they get set to close the regular-season with eight-straight MAC Freedom contests.
In this game, DelVal opened the scoring and the two teams traded a pair of goals through the first stanza to make it a 2-2 game after one. Senior Tony Aguayo got the Aggies on the board with his second of the season and Graeff picked a corner on a man-up opportunity for his first of the game.
The Highlanders (2-5) opened the scoring in the second quarter with a man-up goal to take their only lead of the game at 3-2.
DelVal responded by scoring the next five goals of the game to open up a 7-3 lead with 10:35 left in the third quarter. During that run, Daniel Aulisi set up Chris Marren on two different occasions in the second and Graeff found another man-up goal after a nice transition play with Jack Sprinkle and Aulisi.
The Aggies controlled the pace of the game through the final three quarters and outscored Cairn, 6-2, in the second half to cruise to the six-point win. As a team, DelVal had 33 shots on goal to the Highlanders 11 and they were 14-for-15 on clears attempt while the Highlanders failed to clear 10 times (16-for-26).
Frederick Offenberger was pivotal at the faceoff x as he won 17-of-19 for the Aggies. Aulisi finished with five points on two goals and three assists and Marren followed with four points on two goals and two helpers. Sean Mylod led all players with 11 ground balls and seven caused turnovers to go with a goal and two assists.
Nico Cine was in the net for the Highlanders and earned 22 saves and notched a team-high four ground balls while five different Cairn players registered a goal.
The Aggies kick off conference play, Wednesday, March 29th as they face Kings College.
