MANHASSET, N.Y. (March 28, 2009) – Red Storm senior attackman Drew Schanen's career-best five-goal effort was not enough to hold back the Scarlet Knights, as St. John's fell, 14-10, to Rutgers in ECAC action on Saturday. The conference game was part of the second annual Lacrosse Day of Champions hosted by the Indians Rock and the Boomer Esiason Foundations at Manhasset High School.

With the loss, the Red Storm fell to 1-2 in conference and 5-3 overall. Rutgers advanced to 2-1 in the ECAC and 3-6 overall. Saturday's contest was the second time this season Schanen has scored five points in a game. Against Quinnipiac on Feb. 21, the senior from North Brunswick, N.J. tallied five points on four goals and one assist.

St. John's got off to an early lead, scoring three goals in 13 seconds in the opening period. Rookie attackman Harry Kutner started off scoring for St. John's at 11:08. Winning the face-off, senior Dom DeNapoli scooped up the groundball, ran down the field and dumped the ball off to Schanen who netted his first of the game, at 11:02. DeNapoli kept the momentum going with a fast-break goal off his own face-off win, netting his second of the season.

Scarlet Knight sophomore Kory Kelly put a stop to the Red Storm hot streak with a goal assisted by Justin Pennington at 10:17. Schanen answered back four minutes later off a pass from junior Garrett Mitchell.

Rutgers came back with four-straight goals to go up 5-4 with 10:23 to play in the half. Senior Jamal Jones tied the score at 5-5 with a man-up goal scored on the doorstep from an outside pass from fellow senior Malcolm Miles at 7:00.

Schanen scored his third goal of the game a minute later as he shot the ball top shelf into the Rutgers goal. The ball hit the bottom of the cross bar and into the net just above Scarlet Knight goaltender Billy Olin to give St. John's the 6-5 lead with 5:57 to play in the half.

Rutgers scored another three to take a 8-6 lead with just under two minutes in the second period before Schanen, fed by senior Trevor Michaelsen, cut the deficit to one goal, 8-7 with 1:16 on the clock. After a Rutgers shot attempt with less than a minute to play, junior Jerry Nevin picked up the ground ball and passed it off to senior Matt Viscusi who cleared the ball down field and got a shot off to try to tie the score at eight to go into the halftime break. Viscusi's shot was blocked as time expired in the period.

Coming back from intermission, Rutgers controlled the offense as the Scarlet Knights took 17 shots to St. John's 3. Michael Diehl scored two and Gerhard Buehning netted another to put Rutgers ahead 11-7.

Michaelsen put a stop to the Rutgers run with a goal assisted by rookie Carl Iacona at 7:35. The Red Storm went into the final period behind by three goals, 11-8.

Both teams were scoreless in the first five minutes of play. St. John's got on the board first as the Red Storm defense capitalized on a failed clear attempt by the Scarlet Knights turned over off a bad pass from Brian Shemesh. Iacona was able to make the clear for St. John's and dump the ball to Jones in the offensive box. Jones one-timed the ball to Schanen who was once again waiting at the doorstep to score his fifth goal of the game and 18th of the season, bringing St. John's within two goals, 11-9.

Kelly scored twice more for Rutgers to increase the Scarlet Knight lead to four goals, 13-9 with just 4:18 remaining in the game.

Kutner scored unassisted with just over three minutes left in the game to cut the Rutgers lead back down to three, but Hunter Burnard answered back for the Scarlet Knights to end the game in Rutgers favor, 14-10.

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2009-03-28