Men's Lacrosse Dominant in Home Win Saturday Over St. John's, 13-4

Saturday, March 19

Vidas Field

1:00

Drexel University

3-4

St. John's

1-7

St. John's

Drexel

Photo by: Greg Carroccio

Men's Lacrosse Dominant in Home Win Saturday Over St. John's, 13-4

3/19/2016 3:12:00 PM | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

PHILADELPHIA – The Drexel men's lacrosse team put together a dominant performance on both ends of the field in Saturday's 13-4 victory over the St. John's Red Storm at Vidas Field.

Junior goaltender Jimmy Joe Granito led the effort on the defensive end, saving 16 of the 20 shots that were fired on net. On the offensive end, the Dragons got five goals from Cole Shafer and a hat trick from Robert Frazee. The Red Storm was without its top offensive playmaker, Eric DeJohn, who did not make the trip to University City. Drexel (3-4) jumped on the Red Storm (1-7) from the opening faceoff and would not let up for the full 60 minutes. The Dragons scored the first five goals of the game to take a commanding lead less than 18 minutes in.

Shafer opened the afternoon's scoring, putting Drexel on the board from the left side at 8:23. Just over three minutes later, Mason Pynn found Frazee on the left wing. Joseph Rainoldi would set up Marshal King, who scored with 27 seconds left on the first quarter clock. Shafer, who is now leads the team lead with 15 goals, would then open the second quarter with two goals in 2:38 to put the Dragons up 5-0.

The Dragons and St. John's would trade two goals apiece the rest of the period. Declan Swarthwood finally got the Red Storm in the scoring column at 10:21 in the second. After Frazee pushed the Drexel lead back to five goals, St. John's leading goal scorer, Jason DeBenedictis, found the back of the net at 3:55. However, with 1:36 left in the half, Frazee took the feed from Hank Brown to score his third goal of the half, making it a 7-2 halftime lead for the Dragons.

After the half, St. John's cut Drexel's lead down to four with a goal less than 90 seconds in. That would prove to be the closest it would come the rest of the way as the Dragons rattled off four straight goals to put the game out of reach. The streak started with freshman Matthew Varian finding a streaking Will Manganiello through the heart of the defense for a score. On the ensuing face-off, Nabil Akl, who won 10 of his 18 face-offs, won the draw cleanly to set up Shafer's fourth goal of the day just 40 seconds later.

Varian would then net one of his one right before the quarter break, before Shafer would open the fourth quarter with his fifth to make it an 11-3 lead. After St. John's tallied a score from James Bonanno, Manganiello netted his second with 7:49 to play then senior Frank Fusco scored his first of the year to give the Dragons the 13-4 win.

The Dragons have now won back-to-back games and three of their last four. They will travel to Vestal, N.Y. on Tuesday to take on the Binghamton Bearcats at 4 p.m.