DENVER The No. 18 University of Denver men’s lacrosse team (5-3) defeated the visiting Stony Brook Seawolves (4-3) 17-12 on Saturday afternoon at the Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium.

 

The win snaps a four-game winning streak by the Seawolves and puts the Pioneers back into the win column.

 

Freshman Alex Gajic (Burnaby, British Columbia) led the Pioneers with five goals on nine shots, while senior Joey Murray (Denver, Colo.) added three goals and one assist on five shots. As a team, Denver finished with 42 shots and 42 ground balls, while tallying four saves and capitalizing on its only man-up opportunity.

 

Stony Brook opened up the scoring just 41 seconds into the game as Jordan MacBride scored his 19th goal of the season on a pass from Robbie Campbell. The Seawovles added two more goals over the next six minutes to take a 3-0 lead as Tom Compitello and Kyle Belton both scored.

 

Denver added its first goal of the game with 6:42 remaining as junior Dillon Roy (Denver, Colo.) netted his second of the season. Gajic then cut the deficit to one after converting a pass from sophomore Andrew Lay (Denver, Colo.) to net his eight goal of the season.

 

Stony Brook tallied the next three goals to end the period as Campbell and McBride shared the scoring duties to give the Seawolves a 6-2 lead.

 

It was a different story in the second period as the Pioneers scored four straight goals over a span of eight minutes to tie the score 6-6. Freshman Mark Matthews (Oshawa, Ontario) added his 11th of the season on a pass from junior Charley Dickenson (Dallas, Texas) with 13:45 remaining, while Gajic added his second of the game, ninth of the season, on another pass from Lay with 10:43 left.

 

Senior Cliff Smith (Surrey, B.C.) added his seventh of the season on a pass from Dickenson with 8:27 remaining, while Matthews added his second of the game, 12th of the season on a pass from Smith with 7:27 left.

 

Stony Brook scored the final goal of the half to take a 7-6 lead as Compitello scored his second of the game, fifth of the season.

 

After the Seawolves took a 9-6 lead to open the third quarter, the Pioneers began to find the net once again as they rattled off eight unanswered goals that spanned from the six minute mark of the third period to the 11 minute mark in the fourth period to take a 14-9 lead.

 

The scoring streak included three goals by Gajic, two goals by Matthews and two goals by Dickenson.

 

Stony Brook ended the scoring streak with 9:03 remaining as Timmy Trenkle scored his ninth goal of the game on a pass from Compitello.

 

Denver then added two more to take a 16-10 lead as sophomore Todd Baxter (Eden Prarie, Minn.) added his seventh of the season and Murray added his 16th.

 

Despite a late two-goal rally by the Seawolves, Denver was able to hold off Stony Brook and score its final goal of the game as sophomore Jeff Brown (Cohasset, Mass.) scored his first of the season to give the Pioneers the 17-12 win.

 

Denver returns to action on Tuesday evening as it hosts Drexel at the Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium at 7:30 p.m.

 

- PIONEERS -