WASHINGTON, DC-The York College men's lacrosse team dropped their third straight game as the Catholic University Cardinals handed the Spartans an 11-3 setback at DuFour Field in Washington, DC on Saturday. The Cardinals improve to 4-1 overall and 1-1 in the CAC while the Spartans fall to 1-3 and 0-2 in the CAC. The loss to the Cardinals is the first in the five-year history of the Spartan program.
The Spartans fell behind early as the Cardinals led 2-0 after the first quarter. Keegan Mathe (Arlington Heights, IL/Mt. Hebron) got the Spartans on the board with the first goal of the second quarter but the Cardinals scored the next three goals to take the 5-1 lead. Mathe scored the Spartans' second goal of the game with 3:04 left before the half but Catholic scored with just 50 second remaining in the second quarter to take the 6-2 lead to the half.
The Cardinals scored the lone goal of the third period and they scored the first three goals of fourth quarter to take the commanding 10-2 lead. Adam Cross (Westminster, MD/Westminster) scored the Spartans' final goal off a pass from Ben Bereznay (Red Lion, PA/Mt. Hebron (MD)) with 2:17 remaining in the game. The Cardinals closed out the scoring with a man down goal with 1:41 left in the game.
Conor Kelly led the Cardinals with three goals and two assists while Terence Kempf added two goals and two assists. Tom Alexander led the Cardinals with three assists.
Mathe scored two unassisted goals for the Spartans while Cross tallied the other goal. Bereznay had YCP's lone assist for the game.
Matt Hansen (Marriottsville, MD/River Hill) and Dave Welti (Stroudsburg, PA/Hicksville) split the game in goal for York. Hansen played the first half and allowed six goals on 14 shots while he made three saves. Welti faced19 shots, allowing five goals as he made 11 saves in his 30 minutes of work.
CUA's Andrew Couden made eight saves and allowed just three goals in the win.
The Cardinals held a 33-20 edge in shots while the Spartans had 38 ground balls to 36 for the hosts.
The Spartans return to action on Wednesday when they host Mary Washington College in a CAC contest. Game time is set for 3:30 pm.