MOON TOWNSHIP– The Robert Morris men’s lacrosse team has been dominant so far in their season back in the NEC. They continued their dominance on Saturday afternoon, defeating Mercyhurst 17-8.
The Lakers scored the first two goals of the game in the first five minutes, but it was all Colonials after that scoring six goals all still in the first quarter. Kean Moon scored a hat trick and Calum Brennan netted two goals in the first quarter alone.
Brennan scored had a game-high five goals, with Moon having four goals and an assist.
“ They’re a good group. I don’t think they’re record shows,” Colonials head coach Craig MacDonald said. “I think we were a little flat at the start, they jumped on us. Thankfully woke up a little bit right and put it together and got back to playing our style and playing our speed a little bit in between the lines and created some really good opportunities and cashed in.”
The Colonials shots were accurate, scoring 17 goals on 36 shots on goal, with their passing was superb as well, having 11 assists on 17 goals, with David Burr having three assists on his own
RMU kept pouring onto their lead in the third quarter, outscoring the Lakers 7-1 after already leading by five at the beak..
“It’s always important in the first five minutes out of halftime to make sure that in terms of play and pace and intensity, you wanna feel like you’re winning that,” MacDonald said. “Whether it’s going for you on the scoreboard or not. It’s always a sense of urgency for us to get back out and get going and make sure that we’re hitting the ground running in that first five minutes of the third quarter. We did that and then translated into to some goals for us as well.”
Another asset the Colonials dominated in was the faceoffs, winning 26 of the possible 29 faceoff opportunities, the second-most Bo Columbus set a career-high 20 faceoff wins and is now third all-time in program history with faceoff wins in a game.
“ Bo was very good. Zach Seppi was very good and then Chris Davis was great too,” MacDonald said. “All three of those guys went out there and did a really good job and got us possession, which you know, is huge. We only lost three out of 29, so that’s pretty unheard of.”
The Colonials have started their season undefeated NEC play so far with a 3-0 record, and a perfect 4-0 at Joe Walton Stadium, something expected given the Colonials first place finish in the NEC pre-season poll. Despite being on a good run, coach MacDonald and his team will still be on their toes.
“ I’m never comfortable,” MacDonald said. “Anybody can beat anybody. We’re 0-0 as far as I’m concerned and the most important game right is now where it was today, but now it’s next Saturday down at LIU. So it’s a very good team and we need to make sure that we’re getting back, we’re preparing the right way. We got to fight for another day.”
They will face LIU next Saturday April 5 on the road at 12 p.m.
