No. 13 men's lacrosse rolls 20-8 past Western New England

Jack Scribner's two goals and one assist helped Bates defeat Western New England 20-8 on March 12, 2019 on Garcelon Field. (Samuel Mironko for Bates College)

LEWISTON, Maine -- The No. 13 nationally ranked Bates men's lacrosse team kept rolling to its fourth straight victory Tuesday night, defeating Western New England University 20-8 in a non-conference game at Garcelon Field.

The Bobcats (4-1), ranked 13th nationally and third in New England, outscored the visiting Golden Bears (2-2), who are ranked seventh in New England, by a 7-2 count in the first quarter, took a 10-5 at the half, then continued to pour it on in the second half, outscoring WNE 5-2 in the third quarter and 5-1 in the fourth.

Bates junior Matt Chlastawa (Westfield, Mass.), this week's NESCAC Player of the Week and
USILA D3 Team of the Week selection, paced the offense with five goals on six shots and four assists, adding four ground balls as well. Junior Otis Klingbeil (Powell, Ohio) and sophomore Jack Scribner (Falmouth, Maine) added two goals and one assist apiece, and senior Dahnique Brown-Jones (New Britain, Conn.) also tallied a pair of goals.

Nick Gamba led WNE with three goals and an assist, and Mike Bannon pitched in with a goal and an assist. Hunter Cocks won 19 of 30 faceoffs and scooped a game-high 10 ground balls for WNE. Sean McCusker stopped 11 saves in goal.

Bates continued to play senior Mitchell Drake (Annapolis, Md.) in goal for the first half and Rob Strain in the second. Drake made nine saves and allowed five goals, before Strain made seven stops and allowed three.

Scribner led off the scoring with an unassisted tally 66 seconds into the contest. WNE responded with quick consecutive scores at 12:32 and 12:23, with Jared Ward finding Jared Newall for the equalizer and Cocks scoring off the ensuing faceoff for a 2-1 lead. But 73 seconds later, Andrew Small's goal tied the game, and 29 seconds after that Chlastawa gave Bates the lead for good at 3-2, starting a run of seven unanswered goals for the Bobcats. Chlastawa tallied three goals and an assist in the decisive 7-0 run, which concluded with Brown-Jones's unassisted score with 12:59 to go in the second quarter. Bates scored three straight to open the second half for a 13-5 lead, with Brown-Jones, Chlastawa and Klingbeil all finding the back of the net. The Golden Bears closed the gap to 13-7 as Gamba scored back-to-back extra-man goals, both scored off of loose balls during a two-minute non-releasable penalty served by the Bobcats.

Following an exchange of turnovers over the next minute, junior Walker Cooney (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.) scored his first goal of the season on a Chlastawa assist. Bates' lead returned to eight on junior Curtis Knapton's (Westbrook, Maine) goal off a dish by Small.

The physical game saw the Golden Bears serve 8:30 on six penalties and Bates serve 7:30 on 10 infractions. A pair of 2-minute, non-releasable penalties called on the visitors allowed Bates to finish off the game with man-up goals by first-year Oliver Allen (Portsmouth, N.H.) and Scribner in the final two minutes.

Bates plays a NESCAC game at Trinity Saturday at 1pm. WNE will next play Nazareth College Friday at 7pm at the University of Tampa