Big fourth quarter leads Sage to 18-12 win at Wells

Big fourth quarter leads Sage to 18-12 win at Wells

Aurora, NY— The Sage Colleges men's lacrosse team, trailing early in the fourth quarter, scored seven straight goals in the fourth to defeat host Wells College, 18-12 at Wells Turf Field Tuesday afternoon. The Gators, winners of four of the last five in the program's first season, now are 4-2 on the season while the Express fell to 1-4.

Freshman midfielder David Baraniuk (Budd Lake, NY/Mount Olive) scored seven goals and added five assists for the Gators. Sage got three goals each from three other freshmen, attack Matt Fisher (Niskayuna, NY/Colonie), midfielder Robert Martin (Saugerties, NY/Saugerties) and attack Eric Fairhurst (Wooster, OH/Wooster). Martin added four assists and Fairhurst also added two assists. Freshman midfielder Shea Obado (Spotswood, NJ/Spotswood) had two goals and an assist and freshman midfielder Rich Everoski (Farmingville, NY/Sachem East) has an assist for the guests. Freshmen Michael Capitelli (Oceanside, NY/Oceanside) made 10 saves in just under 50 minutes of play in the Sage net while freshman Brandon Maresca (Landing, NJ/Roxbury) made two saves in just over 10 minutes.

Quenten Battle and Padraic Iannello each had three goals and three assists for Wells, while Dalibor Hanes also scored three times for the Express. Cash Lawson, Jared Shearer and Aaron Ramsey each had a goal and Justin Dude and had an assist for Wells. Trevor Stein made 10 saves in all 60 minutes for the hosts.

Sage had a commanding 42-25 ground ball advantage and won 27 of the 34 faceoffs. Sage was four for five on man-up opportunities and Wells had a slim 41-39 shot advantage.

Sage led 4-3 after the first and 7-6 at halftime. The first half featured four ties. The third featured three ties, including 11-11 after Fairhurst scored a man-up tally with 1:08 left in the third. Wells led 12-11 with 13:16 left in the fourth but the Gators scored seven straight goals to put away the victory.

Sage will play the program's first game in the Empire 8 Sunday when the Gators host Alfred at 1 p.m. Wells is at Wilkes Saturday, March 23 at 1 p.m.