Upper Montclair, NJ - The Montclair State University men's lacrosse team upended visiting Kean University by a 21-5 count in a Knickerbocker Lacrosse Conference match tonight at Sprague Field.
Montclair State improves to 7-3 overall this spring and 5-1 in conference play, while Kean falls to 3-6 overall and 1-3 in the league.
The host Red Hawks also improved to 5-2 at home this spring in defeating the Cougars for the fourth straight season.
MSU raced out to a 7-2 lead after one quarter of play, and then scored eight unanswered goals in the second period for a 15-2 halftime lead. The Red Hawks then held a 20-3 advantage after 45 minutes before closing out the contest.
No less than nine MSU players recorded at least one point on the night as Montclair scored at least 20 goals for the second straight game, having routed host CCNY by a 22-2 score last Saturday.
Freshman
JOHN DELLA PESCA (Fair Lawn, NJ/Fair Lawn), the leading scorer in the Knickerbocker Conference and last week's KLC Rookie of the Week, paced the Red Hawks with six goals, while sophomore attackman
KEVIN GONDRES (Fair Lawn, NJ/Fair Lawn) scored five goals and added an assist. Junior
SEAN PEKARSKY (Clifton, NJ/Clifton) tallied four goals and two assists, and freshman RICH DOYEN (Basking Ridge, NJ/Ridge) posted three goals and three assists.
Junior midfielder Simeon Etta (Newark, NJ/St. Benedicts Prep) had two goals and an assist for the visiting Cougars.
MSU outshot Kean, 41-36, and was 5-for-8 with a man-advantage while Kean won 18-of-28 face-offs.
Senior goalkeeper
VINNY DEGENNARO (Fair Lawn, NJ/Fair Lawn) finished with eight saves for the Red Hawks in just over 40 minutes of action, while sophomore netminder
MARK FERLANTI (Fair Lawn, NJ/Fair Lawn) had six stops in just under 20 minutes of relief. Freshman Bruno Parente (Westfield, NJ/Westfield) made five saves in playing 32:36 for Kean, before giving way to classmate Dave Hanf (Morris Plains, NJ/Hanover Regional), who finished with two stops.
Montclair State next visits SUNY Farmingdale on Saturday, April 12, at 1:00 p.m. on Long Island in a non-conference match. MSU, which is 2-2 outside the KLC this year, defeated Farmingdale, 14-11, last spring in Upper Montclair.