BELMONT, N.C. (Feb. 20, 2007) - Sophomore Greg Cerar scored his career-high fifth goal of the game 55 second into overtime on the extra-man advantage Tuesday afternoon, as the fourth-ranked C.W. Post men's lacrosse team overcame a late charge by host Belmont Abbey and scored an 8-7 victory to wrap up its season-opening Southern swing.

C.W. Post (2-0) took a 1-0 lead 5:32 into the contest, courtesy the first college goal by Raymond Ryan. After Belmont Abbey (0-1) knotted the score at 1-1 with 7:10 left in the first period, the visiting Pioneers scored four straight goals -- two each in the first and second periods -- to hold a 5-1 lead at halftime. Cerar (5 g, 1 a) completed his hat trick with 11:26 left in the half off a pass from Matt Merritt, who scored 98 seconds before intermission for his second goal of the year.

The host Crusaders pulled to within 5-3 with 2:06 left in the third period on Evan Young's second goal of the game, before Cerar converted a feed from Anthony Merendino with 45 seconds left to give the Pioneers a 6-3 lead after 45 minutes of play.

Belmont Abbey then scored the next three goals of the game to tie the game at 6-6 on Jim Ring's second goal of the game with 3:38 remaining in regulation. The Crusaders scored a pair of man-up goals in the first five minutes of the fourth period to set up Ring's tally.

Cerar scored on an unassisted tally with 2:37 left in regulation to put his team back up by a 7-6 score, before C.J. Robinson (3 a) found John Fugitt scored his second goal of the afternoon with 1:55 remaining to force overtime.

Sophomore Mike Cama won the opening face-off in overtime, and was fouled on an illegal body check to set up an extra-man advantage for C.W. Post 16 seconds into the extra session. Then, Rob Renetta (1 g, 1 a) threw a pass from behind the cage to Cerar, who scored into the top-left corner from 10 yards away to give the visitors the win.

C.W. Post doubled Belmont Abbey's shots total (48-24), and held advantages in ground balls (39-26) and face-offs won (10-9). The teams combined for 51 turnovers (BAC: 30), and both squads scored two man-up goals.

Senior Nick Dello-Iacono made five saves in the C.W. Post cage, while Belmont Abbey's Mark Kelske turned aside 19 shots.

Head coach John Jez and the Pioneers are scheduled to open the home portion of their 2007 season Saturday afternoon (Feb. 24), when they welcome Dominican (N.Y.) to Hickox Field for an East Coast Conference game at 1:00 p.m.

Score by Period       1  2  3  4 OT  Tot
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C.W. Post...........  3  2  1  1  1 -  8
Belmont Abbey.......  1  0  2  4  0 -  7
 
C.W. Post SCORING:
GOALS: Cerar, Greg 5; Renetta, Rob 1; Merritt, Matt 1; Ryan; Raymond 1.
ASSISTS: Cerar, Greg 1; Merendino, Anthony 1; Merritt, Matt 1; Renetta,
         Rob 1; Ryan, Raymond 1.
 
Belmont Abbey SCORING:
GOALS: Evan Young 2; Jim Ring 2; John Fugitt 2; James Regan 1.
ASSISTS: C.J. Robinson 3.
 
SHOTS BY PERIOD       1  2  3  4 OT  Tot
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C.W. Post...........  9  9 12 17  1 - 48
Belmont Abbey.......  4  2 11  7  0 - 24
 
GROUND BALLS BY PRD   1  2  3  4 OT  Tot
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C.W. Post...........  9 11  8 10  1 - 39
Belmont Abbey.......  4  6  8  8  0 - 26
 
FACE-OFFS BY PRD       1     2     3     4     OT    Total
----------------------------------------------------------
C.W. Post...........  3-5   1-3   2-4   3-6   1-1  - 10-19
Belmont Abbey.......  2-5   2-3   2-4   3-6   0-1  -  9-19
 
CLEARS BY PERIOD       1     2     3     4     OT    Total
----------------------------------------------------------
C.W. Post...........  3-5   8-9   4-5   3-3   0-0  - 18-22
Belmont Abbey.......  3-4   2-3   3-4   2-6   0-0  - 10-17
 
EXTRA-MAN OPPS         1     2     3     4     OT    Total
----------------------------------------------------------
C.W. Post...........  0-0   0-1   1-3   0-2   1-1  -  2-7
Belmont Abbey.......  0-1   0-0   0-2   2-2   0-0  -  2-5
 
SAVES BY PERIOD       1  2  3  4 OT  Tot
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C.W. Post...........  2  0  3  0  0 -  5
Belmont Abbey.......  2  5  6  6  0 - 19
 
TURNOVERS BY PRD      1  2  3  4 OT  Tot
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C.W. Post...........  5  8  5  3  0 - 21
Belmont Abbey.......  5 10  8  7  0 - 30
 
PENALTIES - C.W. Post 5/4:30; Belmont Abbey 7/5:30.

2007-02-20