MARCH 8, 2013

KING'S MEN'S LAXERS IMPROVE TO 3-0 WITH 7-6 ROAD VICTORY OVER ST. VINCENT

LATROBE -- The King's College men's lacrosse team remained unbeaten with a hard-fought 7-6 victory over host St. Vincent College Friday afternoon in Latrobe.

With the win, the Monarchs improved to 3-0 on the year while St. Vincent fell to 2-1.

King's built a 2-1 lead after tehe first period when Lenny Fox scored the game's opening goal unassisted and Billy McCullough struck net off a Mike O'Brien assist. St. Vincent tied the score at 2-2 just 1:14 into the second period on a Sean Kretovics goal but A.J. Bungert put the Monarchs on top 3-2 with an unassisted tally with 6:28 left in the half.

The Monarch led quickly grew to 4-2 when Liam Kelly made good on a pass from O'Brien just 1:09 later. St. Vincent cut the score to 4-3 at the half when Jay Lunz scored with 0:15 on the clock.

In the third period the Bearcats tied the score at 4-4 on a goal from Nick Pensyl just 1:09 into the frame but King's countered when Kieran McMahn scored unassisted at the 10:29 mark and Kevin Sweeney found the back of the net off a Fox assist with 9:06 on the clock to give the Monarchs a 6-4 lead.

St. Vincent, however, used two goals of its own, one from Zach Altieri and another by Zach Clark to knot the score at 6-6 with 4:01 remaining in the third period. From there, Bungert scored unassisted with 0:32 on the clock to give the Monarchs a 7-6 lead heading into the final period.

From there, both defenses held firm but King's goalie Brendan McCrudden came up with four saves as the Bearcats outshot the Monarchs 9-6 over the final 15 minutes of play but were unable to cash in as King's walked away with the victory.

St. Vincent outshot King's 43-23 but the Monarch defense forced 26 of those shots off-net as only 17 were on-goal and McCrudden made 11 total stops.

Bungert led King's with two goals while O'Brien dished out two assists. Fox tallied one goal and one assist to pace the Monarchs offensively. O'Brien posted a team-high six ground balls while Malcolm Ford added five. Joe Massa posted a team-high three caused turnovers while Ryan Francik won 6-of-11 faceoffs.

King's returns to action Wednesday with a 4:00 p.m. home matchup against Marywood University at McCarthy Stadium.