MEN'S LAX POUNDS HOSTING BADGERS IN NAC BID SATURDAY

A five goal day for Mount Ida College junior Matthew Savage (Peabody, MA/Peabody) propelled the men’s lacrosse program to a 14-4 North Atlantic Conference (NAC) bludgeoning over hosting Johnson State College on a soggy Saturday in Vermont.  The Mustangs, who remain perfect in the conference at 5-0, improve to 6-5 overall while the Badgers fall to 1-6, 1-4 in league play. 

Savage got things rolling by taking an assist from Dan Harrington (Westford, MA/Westford Academy) and depositing in the goal at the 10:42 mark of the first period and to open the game’s scoring.  Goals from Nick Yacuzzi (Oakham, MA/St. John’s) and Derek Broughton (Peabody, MA/Peabody) shortly after made it 3-0 and gave the Mustangs a comfortable early margin.

JSC’s Steve Noyes (Barre, VT/Spaulding) got the Badgers on the board with 5:04 left to play in the first with an unassisted goal making it 3-1 but Mount Ida would outscore Johnson 6-0 over the next 20 minutes for the 9-1 halftime lead.  Two of the six goals in that run would come from Savage and two from Harrington as well as tallies by Eric Parhiala (Derry, NH/Pinkerton Academy) and Brandon Keith (Barnstable, MA/Barnstable).

The Mustangs would open the second half with goals from Christopher Prophete (Waltham, MA/Waltham) and another from Harrington to make the score 11-1 until Alex Petti’s (East Greenwich, CT/East Greenwich) would end the Ida scoring run with 2:42 left in the third period on a feed from senior Erik Tillberg (Randolph, VT/Randolph). 

Matt Vernik (Bethany, CT/Amity Regional) opened the fourth period scoring with a goal on a Yacuzzi helper at 10:27 remaining but JSC would strike back just a minute later when Petti and Tillberg hooked up again.  Tillberg came from behind the net to find a cutting Petti for the pretty score making it 12-3.

Goals by Savage, Parhiala, and another by Savage to give him five goals and an assist in the contest gave the Mustangs their largest lead of the day at 11 and a 15-4 margin.

Senior Billy Noyes (Boston, MA/Northeast Regional) fired home an unassisted goal with 6:41 left to play to complete the games scoring.

Johnson’s Branden Sawyer (East Greenwich, CT/East Greenwich) was outstanding throughout the entire game making several sprawling stops as well as saves in one-on-one situations to finish with 17 saves in the game.  James McAllister (Smithfield, RI/LaSalle Academy) made a pair of first half saves before giving way to Craig Naftal (Bellmore, NY/JFK) who stopped nine second half shots for Mount Ida’s goalkeeping efforts.

The Mustangs will stay up in Vermont for the night and play neighboring Lyndon State College Sunday afternoon for more NAC action starting at 1:00 p.m.