The Fairfield University men's lacrosse team defeated visiting Dartmouth College, 14-9, this afternoon on alumni Field. The win improves the Stags to 2-0 on the season, while the Big Green drops to 1-1.

The Stags struck early in the contest, netting their first goal 55 seconds into the first quarter as Dan Boudreau put home a pass from Chris Ajemian. Boudreau added a second tally five minutes later, this time from a pass by Travis Nelson. Fairfield went ahead 3-0 on a Chris Trombino goal at 8:53. The Big Green scored the next two goals, in a 14 second span, but Matt Plominski scored at the 3:19 mark to give Fairfield a 4-2 lead after one quarter.

The second quarter saw the Stags defense hold Dartmouth to one goal, while netting five of its own goals. Ajemian netted a pair of goals, while Boudreau, Trombino and Brendan Finnerty all scored as well. The Stags offense pushed the lead to 11-3 early in the third quarter, as Ajemian netted his third of the game, and Doug Kuring got on the board. Dartmouth out scored the Stags 6-3 over the final 20:33 of the game, but got no closer then the five goal final margin.

Ajemian finished the game with five points, a game-high. Travis Nelson had three assists on the afternoon.

The Stags defense was strong all day, backstopped by sophomore Joe Marra. Marra made 14 saves in the contest, playing the entire contest. Michael Novosel started and played 17:22, allowing six goals and making five saves, and was replaced by Pat Marshall, who made six saves, while allowing eight goals.

Fairfield was good on the face-off again today, winning 16-24 for the game. Andrew Urqhart, who had a game-high five ground balls, won 9-12, while Sean Fay captured 7-12. The Stags picked up 30 ground balls, while Dartmouth had 27 and out shot Dartmouth 44-34. The Stags cleared 14-19 for the game, with Dartmouth at 14-21. The Stags did commit more turnovers, 23-20.

The Big Green received a pair of goals from Ari Sussman, Jonathan Livades and Jimmy Mullen.

The Stags open at 2-0 for the second straight season. Dartmouth was ranked second in the New England Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (NEILA) poll, and received votes in both the Nike/Inside Lacrosse and USILA national poll. Fairfield is fourth in the NEILA poll.

Fairfield returns to action on March 8, when it opens ECAC Lacrosse League play at Rutgers.

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FAIRFIELD, CONN. - Fairfield jumped out to a quick, 3-0, lead before junior Jonathan Livadas (Wilmington, Del.) scored an unassisted goal to put Dartmouth on the board. The Stags went on to win the game, 14-9 before a crowd of 700 on a sunny, relatively, warm 40 degree Saturday afternoon.

Livadas scored at 4:19 of the first period, followed 14 seconds later by Jimmy Mullen (Mt. Lebanon, Pa.) who fired a shot past goalie Joe Marra for his second goal of the season. In the second period Mullen scored his second goal of the game on a man-up opportunity to bring the Green within three, 6-3. After having a penalty free game last week against Hartford, Dartmouth had five penalties on the afternoon, giving up three shorthanded goals to the Stags. The Big Green was 2-5 on extra-man opportunities.

At halftime Fairfield led 9-3 and came out of the break scoring two unanswered goals before Ari Sussman (New Haven, Conn.) scored the first of his two goals to get the Green to 11-4.

In the fourth quarter, Dartmouth outscored Fairfield, 4-2 but it wasn't enough as the Stags came away with the win. Junior Chris Ajemian and senior Dan Boudreau each had hat tricks for Fairfield. Ajemian scored the eventual gamewinner to open up the third quarter. Sophomores Christopher Root (Houston, Texas) and Andrew Peisch (Wellesley, Mass.) had their first goals of the season for Dartmouth. Junior Brian Koch (Rye, N.Y.) had the final Big Green goal of the game with just over a minute to play with an assist from senior Tim Daniels (Duxbury, Mass.).

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2008-03-01