Pleasantville, N.Y. (April 28) -- In the regular-season finale for Saint Anselm, the men's lacrosse team came away with a thrilling 10-9 double-overtime win over Pace to earn the No. 5 seed in the Northeast-10 Tournament. The tournament berth is the first for the Hawks since the 2003 season.

Saint Anselm jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead after the first quarter and kept it up in the second to seize an early 4-0 advantage with 11:53 left in the opening half. The Setters answered back with five unanswered goals, including two by Robert Cornetta and three from Ryan Gregory to take a 5-4 edge early in the third period. The Hawks regained the lead with third-quarter scores from Steve Trocki (Braintree, Mass.) and Chris Murphy (Winchester, Mass.) and held a 6-5 advantage with 11:45 left in the quarter. The Hawks never trailed again, even though the Setters did again tie the contest three more times before the game ended into overtime.

After a scoreless first overtime, senior Brian Hubert (Nashua, N.H.) scored the game-winner with 2:12 left in the second extra period to keep the season alive.

Senior Andrew Roy (Westford, Mass.) made 14 saves in the victory. Timothy Matheis turned aside 13 shots in the overtime defeat.

Murphy and Trocki led the team with two goals each as eight different players scored for the Hawks. Gregory led all scorers in the game with five goals for the Setters as Cornetta and James Hammel each scored twice.

The win caps off a tremendous run as the team won four of its last five games, with all four wins coming on the road, to clinch the tournament berth.

The Hawks will open up the tournament on Tuesday when the team travels to No. 4 seeded Merrimack for a quarterfinal game at a time to be announced. The entire tournament schedule will be available on the NE-10 web site.

2007-04-28