MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (Fri., April 24, 2009) -- Defeating Connecticut College (6-9, 1-8 NESCAC) for the 11th time in the last 13 meetings while improving its all-time mark vs. the Camels to 22-12, Wesleyan (11-3, 6-3) posted a 10-5 victory to lock up a home game for the NESCAC tournament, which begins Sun., April 26. Seeded fourth, Wesleyan will host 5th-seeded Williams in a first-round game starting at 1:00 p.m. Williams and Wesleyan just met April 18 in Middletown with Williams winning, 9-5. Conn. College failed to qualify for the NESCAC tournament.

Against the Camels, Wesleyan got seven goals from first-line attack middies senior Dan Latzman and junior Lonny Blumenthal. Latzman collected four goals and an assist on the afternoon while Blumenthal tallied three times and added a helper for a four-point game. Also with four points for Wesleyan was senior attackman Jason Ben-Eliyahu (2-2-4).

Conn. College was led by junior Steve Dachille with two goals and an assist. He leads the Camels in goals this year with 35. Ben-Eliyahu ranks second in scoring for Wesleyan (21-16-37) while Latzman is fourth (17-7-24) and Blumenthal fifth (14-7-21). With a goal and an assist for Conn, sophomore Ryan Hayes improved his team-leading point total to 49 (29-20-49).

Wesleyan held a narrow 2-1 lead after the first quarter and upped its advantage to 4-1 on Blumenthal's goal with 9:20 left before halftime. When Dachille cut the gap to 4-2 at the 6:45 mark, it was the last goal for the Camels until 12:58 remained in the fourth period, representing a scoreless span of 23:47. During the stretch, the Cardinals hit the twine five times, three of them on man-advantage situations, to push the lead to 9-2 late in the third period. Senior Jesse Stevenson ended the drought for the Camels and the visitors added two more late scores to make it a five-goal margin.

In goal, last year's first-team all-NESCAC keeper junior Mark Moran was busy making 15 saves for Conn. College while Wesleyan senior Mike Borrero needed to make just three saves in his three periods of work as Conn put only five shots on net in the opening 45 minutes. Conn upped that to nine shots on in the final period alone as junior Colin Campbell posted six saves for Wesleyan in the last stanza.

2009-04-25