QU Men's Lacrosse Uses Early Offense to Defeat Manhattan, Improve to 3-0 in MAAC

Saturday, April 7

Hamden, CT

3:00 PM

Quinnipiac University

6-5, 3-0MAAC

Manhattan College

4-7, 0-3MAAC

Manhattan

Quinnipiac

QU Men's Lacrosse Uses Early Offense to Defeat Manhattan, Improve to 3-0 in MAAC

4/7/2018 5:38:00 PM | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

By: QU Athletic Communications

HAMDEN, Conn. — The Quinnipiac men's lacrosse team scored seven times in the first quarter, then held on the rest of the way without scoring a goal in the second half, as it defeated Manhattan 9-5 on Saturday afternoon at Quinnipiac Lacrosse Stadium behind three goals and three assists from junior attack Mike Fletcher.

With the win, the Bobcats remain perfect in the MAAC at 3-0 and improve to 6-5 overall. Manhattan sees its record slide to 4-7 overall and 0-3 in the MAAC.

Quinnipiac led 7-2 at the end of the first quarter and 9-4 at the half and then rode out the second half as only one goal was scored after halftime. Sophomore goalie Joe Zukauskas had eight of his 11 saves in the second half while allowing just one tally from Manhattan with 14:04 left in the game.

After an early goal from freshman attack Jake Tomsik was answered by Manhattan's Luke Hanson, Quinnipiac rattled off the next four goals over a span of 4:47, with Fletcher having a hand in all four. He fed senior midfielder Brian Feldman with 9:51 left in the first quarter, then scored unassisted goals at the 8:03 and 6:53 marks to push the lead to 4-1. On an extra-man opportunity, Fletcher capped off the run by feeding senior midfielder Ryan Corcoran.

Andrew Gresham stopped the run for Manhattan to make the score 5-2, but Fletcher capped off a first quarter hat trick with 3:39 on the clock, and senior defenseman Riley Palmer added a tally off a Tomsik feed with just 12 seconds left in the first to make the score 7-2, as Quinnipiac held a 19-4 edge in shots over the first 15 minutes.

The scoring slowed down in the second quarter, but junior attack Foster Cuomo found the net twice in succession to give the Bobcats their largest lead at 9-3 with 1:22 left in the half. Manhattan scored just before the final buzzer as Brandon Grinnell scored with two seconds on the clock, but the Jaspers were unable to keep that momentum going after halftime, as neither team scored in the third quarter.

Quinnipiac finished the game with just a 41-36 edge in shots as Manhattan outshot the Bobcats 16-7 in the fourth quarter, but were only able to find the net once in those 16 shots. The Bobcats held the Jaspers to 0-6 on man-up chances, as senior defender Mike Ruane had four caused turnovers and four ground balls, and senior long-stick midfielder Adam Bellamy had seven ground balls to lead the defense.

The Bobcats return to action next Saturday for their final home game, a 2 p.m. contest with Canisius, which will also be Senior Day for the program's 14 seniors.