The Fairfield University men's lacrosse team finished the 2009 season with a 17-5 win over ECAC Lacrosse League foe St. John's University on Lessing Field Saturday afternoon. The win gives the Stags a 7-6 overall mark, their first winning season 2005, and finish with their best-ever ECAC record, at 4-3. The Red Storm fall to 5-8 on the season and 1-6 in ECAC action.

Playing in his final game Chris Ajemian wasted little time in putting the Stags ahead, scooping up the ground ball on the opening face-off and netting a goal nine seconds into the game. The Stags struck twice more, within 10 seconds, at 9:47 and 9:37, as Brent Adams and John Snellman touched net to give Fairfield a 3-0 advantage. Fairfield pushed the lead to 4-0, on a Nick Baglio goal at the 5:11 mark and took a 5-1 lead at the end of the first quarter.

The Stags struck for the first two goals of the second quarter, both by Logan Rausse, to push the advantage to 7-1. After a Carl Iacona sandwiched goals around Ajemian's second tally in the middle of the second quarter, making it 8-3 with 5:37 to play in the half. Fairfield struck for four goals in the final 4:54 of the half, with Ajemian touching net twice more, for an 11-3 advantage at halftime. The Stags, who had 11 players score a goal in the game, would out score the Red Storm 6-2 in the second half, including the first two career goals for senior Jeff Cilente.

Charlie Cipriano earned the win in net for Fairfield, making 12 saves, against four goals, in his 51:11 of action. Joe Marra played the final 8:49 and made a pair of saves, against one goal.

All told the Fairfield senior class was responsible for seven goals, four assists, 18 ground balls and seven caused turnovers in the game. Ajemian picked up a career-high nine ground balls to go along with four caused turnovers.

The Stags finished the game with a 43-33 advantage in ground balls and caused 18 turnovers in the game. Fairfield out shot St. John's 40-33 and both teams won 13 face-offs. The Stags cleared 24-29 on the day, with St. John's clearing 17-21.

For the first time this season the Stags scored man-down, doing so twice in the victory. Brent Adams tallied an unassisted man-down goal with 89 seconds left in the first quarter and Ajemian did so with 2:11 to play in the second quarter

St. John's was led by the two goals of Iacona and had four players score in the game. Gavin Buckley made the start in goal, allowing 15 goals and making five saves in 51:53. Max Carr played the final 8:07, giving up two goals and making one save.

Fairfield will finish in a tie for third place in the ECAC Lacrosse League, its best finish in its four years as a member of the league.

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FAIRFIELD, Conn. (April 25, 2009) – St. John's lacrosse lost 17-5 in league action to the Fairfield Stags on Saturday at Lessing Field. With the loss, the Red Storm fell to 5-8 overall and 1-6 in conference with its last-ever game in the ECAC Lacrosse league. Fairfield's win advances their record to 7-6 overall and 4-3 in the ECAC.

Fairfield got off to an early 4-0 start, with their first goal coming nine seconds into the game off the Stag's face-off win. Their third goal was scored the same way as the first, with a Fairfield win at the face-off X, turned into a fast-break goal.

A face-off win by Dom DeNapoli gave St. John's the next possession, and junior Garrett Mitchell came around the Fairfield goal and scored to put the Red Storm on the board at 3:52. Fairfield answered back with a man-down goal with 1:29 left in the opening period. The Stags took a 5-1 lead to go into the second quarter. The Stags led off the second period with two goals scored by Logan Rausse to take a 7-1 lead.

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2009-04-25