HANOVER, N.H. — Fueled by four goals from freshman
Emmett Paradine, and a strong defensive effort, the Dartmouth men's lacrosse team improved to 3-0 following an 11-8 victory over Siena Saturday afternoon. The Big Green pushed past the Saints in a tight contest, scoring the game's final three goals for a home-opening win at Scully-Fahey Field. Dartmouth is now 3-0 for just the second time since 2006 and is one of only five remaining undefeated teams in NCAA Division I men's lacrosse.
The Big Green defense contained a strong Siena offense that had been averaging 13.0 goals per game coming in. Dating back to the end of last season, the Saints had scored double-figure goals in seven straight games.
"Siena is a very good offense," said Dartmouth head coach
Brendan Callahan. "They've been putting up some great numbers and they have some great pieces. We were able to limit them some on the inside. Credit to our guys for the preparation and work they did all week. And then also,
Sam Cooper in goal for us today was great; he had a couple really big saves. When you get that type of effort from the players in preparation and then your goalie making a few big stops, that goes a long way."
Dartmouth jumped out to early leads of 3-0, 5-1 and later 7-3. The Saints used a four-goal scoring run to pull even at seven, but the Big Green responded with four of the game's final five goals to erase any doubt.
Along with Paradine's four goals and an assist, junior
Nate Davis had three points (two goals and one assist) while five other players scored a goal.
A big story was senior faceoff specialist
Mitchell Myers, who won 19-of-23 faceoffs with 11 groundballs in an absolutely dominant effort. After last week saw Myers lose the fewest faceoffs when taking 20 or more at the X, he did even better against the Saints. Most impressive was that Myers' effort came against Siena's Dylan Pape, who had won 65.7 percent of his faceoffs entering the game.
Defensively, fifth year
Peter Rizzotti had a big game with three groundballs and three caused turnovers. Junior
Ben DiGiovanni added a career-high six groundballs, along with a caused turnover. Senior
Andrew Johnston collected six groundballs.
The Big Green jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, with goals from Paradine and sophomores
Colin McGill and
Holden Deck. After Siena got on the board at the 4:22 mark, the Big Green responded with goals from sophomore
Brandon Ventarola at 3:01 of the first, and a man-up tally from Davis at 9:43 of the second.
The Saints answered with the final two second-quarter goals to pull within 5-3 at the half.
Dartmouth quickly regained separation early in the third quarter, with goals from freshmen
Cameron Brown and Paradine, making it 7-3 just over four minutes into the stanza. Later in the third, Siena had an answer, scoring three goals in the final 5:29 of the period, before adding a fourth straight 1:18 into the fourth, to pull even at seven.
Just over two minutes later, Paradine scored his third to make it 8-7 at the 11:31mark. After Siena pulled even, sophomore
Quinn Moore broke the deadlock for good, on an assist from Paradine, with 6:10 remaining in the third. Paradine and Davis added all-important insurance tallies for the 11-8 lead, which proved to be final.
The Big Green finished with a 37-26 edge in shots and 37-27 advantage in groundballs. Dartmouth had 21 turnovers to Siena's 17. Freshman
Sam Cooper made some timely saves in goal, finishing with nine, while the Saints' Chris Yanchoris made 13.
Dartmouth, Cornell, Virginia, Notre Dame and UMBC are the only remaining unbeaten teams in Division I men's lacrosse after Saturday's action.
"Everybody in Division I is good right now," said Callahan. "Certainly you can see that with Siena and how they played today. Anytime you can start the season 3-0, which we haven't done around here throughout our history a lot of times, it's really impressive. I'm really excited to get a win today against a good team.
The Big Green have a quick turnaround on Tuesday as they play at Hobart. Opening faceoff is set for 3 p.m.