The Siena men's lacrosse team won the 2009 regular season Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship with a 13-7 win at Marist Wednesday evening. The Saints remain undefeated in league play (7-0) and will be the No. 1 seed in the MAAC Tournament to be played in Buffalo, N.Y. on May 1. Siena takes its seven-game win streak into the regular season finale at Providence this Saturday.

Siena (9-5, 7-0) took a 3-0 lead over Marist in the first quarter with goals by Chris Zarins (7:48), Shaun Dunn (5:06) and Jordan Loftus (3:57). The Saints outshot the Red Foxes 9-6 in the period and goalie Brent Herbst made two saves to keep Marist off the scoreboard.

Marist (4-8, 4-3) got on the scoreboard three minutes into the second quarter on Corey Zindel's first goal of the game. But Siena stormed back with three goals in a five minute span to take a 6-1 lead with 5:39 left in the half. Dunn's second goal of the game, on man-up, kick started the Siena run. He finished with three goals.

Evan Guarini scored to cut the deficit to four goals, but Zarins tallied his second unassisted goal of the half with 21 seconds remaining before intermission. The Saints led 7-2 at halftime.

Marist fought back in the third quarter, outshooting Siena 13-7 in the period. They scored two goals in the first two minutes of the quarter and got another one with 30 seconds left. But the Saints hurt them late once again as Matt Leithead scored with one second left before the end of the period. Herbst weathered the storm for the Saints, making five saves and limiting the damage to three goals.

Siena got goals from Dunn and Neufeld in the early part of the fourth period and opened up a 10-5 lead. Marist and Siena traded goals and with the score at 11-5 in favor of Siena, Neufeld closed the door with two late goals.

The Saints spread around the offense with 11 players notching a point while six had multi-point games. Herbst (9-4) earned the win with 11 saves.

This is Siena's second regular season MAAC championship in program history (2007 and 2009). Coincidentally, Siena clinched in 2007 when it defeated Marist in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. That year, the Saints were upset in the tournament semifinals by Providence.

Siena concludes the regular season when they play Providence in Rhode Island this Saturday at 2:00 p.m.

2009-04-23