SPRINGFIELD, MA – The Merrimack men's lacrosse team, ranked fourth nationally, improved to a perfect 8-0, with a 14-8 victory over American International Monday afternoon.

The Warriors (8-0, 3-0 NE-10) will battle top-ranked and unbeaten Le Moyne College Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at Warrior Field with the top spot in the conference, and, potentially the country, at stake.

Greg Rogowski (Cohoes, NY), who leads the conference in scoring and the country in points per game, led the way with seven goals and nine points, giving him 37 goals and 58 points in eight games. Rogowski was named the Northeast-10 Player of the Week for the third straight week Monday.

The Warriors actually trailed 3-1 after the first 6:44 but rallied, scoring four unanswered goals to close the first quarter with a 5-3 lead.

Merrimack got third quarter goals from Rogowski, Bryan MacPhie and David Robinson to take a 9-4 lead but AIC's Aaron McNab scored twice in under a minute, while Travis Ortensi scored 40 seconds later, cutting the Warriors' advantage to 9-7.

But Rogowski took over, scoring three unassisted goals in a 2:10 span, and MacPhie and Michael Balbuena put the game away late with a pair of goals.

MacPhie finished with three goals in the game, while Taylor Robarts chipped in with a goal and an assist to go with five groundballs. Nick Maggio won 19 of 25 faceoffs in the "X" and tallied eight ground balls. Cory Spinale stopped eight shots in the win.

The Warriors outshot the Yellow Jackets (0-7, 0-4 NE-10) 49-24 in the game and won 20 of 26 draws.

2009-04-06