Crusaders Pull Away From Griffins In The Fourth

ST. LOUIS, Mo.— On a rainy afternoon at Centene Stadium, the Fontbonne University men's lacrosse team played well, but the Dallas Crusaders pulled away in the second half for the 17-8 win.

The Griffins (0-2), outshot Dallas 36-32, however, the team had its struggles on the face-off dot, winning just 6-of-28, compared to Dallas going 22-of-28.

Individually, Michael Picciolo and Cameron Director stood out offensively as the duo each scored three goals and Director added two assists as well. In net, Nick Fresta was dealt the loss after making eight saves.

Dallas (2-0), meanwhile, put the game away in the fourth scoring eight goals. J.P. Hasson led with a game-high five goals on nine shots, while Tyler Smith contributed four and Tucker Jameson netted three. In goal, Christian Lopez came up big when needed, finishing with 11 saves.

In the first quarter, the Griffins got on the board first as after good clear attempt, the ball eventually made its way over to Director and he scored his first of the game at 11:16.

Less than 20.0 seconds later, the Crusaders answered on Jameson's goal to tie it up. That score remained the same up until Patrick Kennedy found Dalton Teague and he ripped his shot past Lopez to make it a 2-1 game at 9:43.

The two teams continued its back-and-forth play up until 5:31. After a save from Lopez, the Crusaders took its offense down the field and Smith scored the equalizer, off an assist from Peter Early, to tie it up at 2-2 after one.

The Griffins outshot Dallas 10-7 and went 6-of-7 on its clear attempts, though the Crusaders won all five of the face-offs.

In the second quarter, Dallas took its first lead of the game at 12:32 on Chasen Reynolds goal. After a timeout by Fontbonne, Matt Rech won the ensuing face-off.

Later, Reagan Chin passed it on over to Picciolo and he found twine to tie the game, 3-3. Picciolo kept rolling from there, scoring twice more at 8:07 and 6:01 to give the Griffins its largest lead of the game, 5-3.

However, that lead was short-lived. The Griffins were called for a penalty at 5:56 and the Crusaders took advantage as Jameson beat Fresta to cut the deficit down to 5-4 (5:19). Fontbonne was called for another penalty at the 3:24 mark and that proved costly.

Just 23.0 seconds into the penalty, Smith scored on the man-advantage to tie the game 5-5 as both teams headed into the locker room.

In the third, the Crusaders scored four unanswered goals to take a 9-5 lead with 1:20 to go. However, with 52.0 seconds left, the Crusaders were called for a slashing penalty. The Griffins answered with Alex Scott netting his first of the afternoon to narrow the deficit down to 9-6.

In the final quarter of play, the Griffins scored early, at 14:09, as Director's shot got past Lopez to put the home team down just two (9-7). The Crusaders, though took over the final 14:00 minutes of play, outscoring Fontbonne 8-1, en route to the nine-goal win.

Fontbonne will now hit the road next weekend when they'll pay a visit to Earlham on Saturday. Game-time set for 12 p.m.

Fans make sure to stay updated on fontbonnegriffins.com throughout the year for full updates and recaps on the men's lacrosse team.