Riverdale, N.Y. (April 26, 2006)-So far the Jasper Faithful has only had two opportunities to see Manhattan Men's Lacrosse take the field at Gaelic Park, but both times the Jasper Faithful went home happy. Manhattan used a balanced attack to once again defend its home turf on Wednesday afternoon, dominating Wagner 10-4 in a MAAC contest. Nine different Jaspers managed to find the back of the net, with junior
Chris Oppito being the only Manhattan player to score twice on the afternoon.
The first Jasper to tickle the twine was junior
Jeremy Marrano who opened the game's scoring just over seven minutes into the contest. Marrano's tally sparked a Manhattan spurt that saw five straight Jasper goals in nine-plus minutes.
Exactly one minute after Marrano's fifth goal of the season, Oppito took a pass from
Brian Murray and put it past Wagner goalie Chris Sochacki, taking advantage of a man-up opportunity.
Rob Sitar and
Kevin Dorsey joined the scoring act and Oppito added his second tally of the game before Wagner was able to get on the scoreboard.
Trailing 5-0 with under 2:30 remaining in the opening half, Wagner finally broke through as Josh Hamilton scored on the power play.
Wagner would have a little more success on the offensive end in the second half, but Manhattan goalie
John Geagan kept the Seahawks under control for the most part. Geagan made 20 saves on the day, while Sochacki also had a good day in net on the other side of the field. Out of the 41 Jasper shots, 29 of them made their way on goal and 19 of them were turned aside by Sochacki.
Two Manhattan freshman helped ice the victory in the fourth quarter, as Mark Labelle and Frank Piccola scored the Jaspers' final two goals on the day.
With the victory Manhattan moves to 5-7 overall and 3-4 in MAAC play. The Jaspers will close out the regular season on Saturday, April 29 against VMI at Gaelic Park. The official start time is 1:00 p.m., but there will be a ceremony honoring Manhattan's seniors prior to the opening face-off.
