By Eric Botti
Elm Staff Writer
Washington College men’s lacrosse started their season strong this year with a victory over non-Conference rival Berry College, who travelled to WC from Mount Berry, Georgia.
The Shoremen scored nearly twice as many points as Berry, finishing the game 21-12.
The Shoremen started their attack right from the onset, when senior Trey Ritter scored off an assist by sophomore Matt Schellenger. They continued running up the score with seven additional points on the board in the first eleven minutes of the game. By the end of the first quarter, the Shoremen were up 0-8.
Contributing to the next seven points on the scoreboard was junior Cooper Sloan off an assist by junior Cody Pascale, followed by Pascale from Sloan.
Next was a goal by senior Casey Grieves off an assist from senior Zachary Gorassi, and then another from Sloan unassisted.
Grieves scored off a pass from senior Charlie Walker, followed by Gorassi unassisted, and another from Sloan off senior Nick Boyles.
Sloan scored the first three goals of his game-total of four in the first period.
The second quarter started with another WC score from sophomore Quinn Willis, but Berry finally got on the board, scoring the next three goals of the game.
Senior Hudson Harris of Berry scored all three of Berry’s first goals, earning a hat-trick.
The Shoremen were able to nullify the lead by scoring three additional points before the end of the first half.
Goals came from Grieves, sophomore Sean Reilly, and Pascale again. Berry scored four goals duing the period.
The following scorers then added four goals to the score board, bringing the total score to 16-7 by the end of the third period: Pascale, senior Kevin Trapp, Grieves, and Pascale again.
The fourth period saw goals from Pascale, Sloan, sophomore Joe Tobin, Willis for his second, and Gorassi, who scored the final goal of the game.
In the second half, both Berry and WC were able to score nine points. Because of the Shormen’s early lead, however, they came out on top with ease.
On WC’s offensive side, three top performers made up 13 of the total 21 points. Pascal scored five times for the Shormen, while Grieves and Sloan both scored four.
On the defensive side, senior Kevin Wilson had a game-high of three caused-turnovers.
The victory, however, wouldn’t be possible without the Shoremen goalies, sophomores Chris Del Rosario and Connor Cunningham.
Del Rosario was named the Goose Nation TV Shoremen Player of the Game because of the 21 saves he made. This was his first career start as a goalie, and it was an outstanding performance; he opened the season making more saves than he did all of last season.
The Shoremen sit at 1-0 overall record and play their next game on Saturday, Feb. 23 versus Washington and Lee University.