The Aurora University men's lacrosse team secured the out-right Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference regular season title and the No. 1 seed in the upcoming NACC tournament with a 16-4 drubbing of the Raiders from Milwaukee School of Engineering. A close first-half quickly became a blowout in the second as AU dominated the final 30 minutes.
GAME SCORE: Aurora University 16,
Milwaukee School of Engineering 4
RECORDS: Aurora University 13-4 overall and 8-0 NACC;
Milwaukee School of Engineering 0-15 overall and 0-8 NACC
LOCATION: Montgomery, Illinois - Spartan Athletic Park
- The Spartans took a 1-0 lead with a
Tyler Foerstel goal.
- Goals from
Carson Leader and
Owen Spencer in the first gave the Spartans a 3-1 lead after the first 15 minutes of action.
- After an early goal in the second from MSOE, Spartans
Mikail Byun and
Rielan Pura took over.
- Byun scored twice with Pura assists on both goals and then Pura lit the lamp for a 6-2 AU lead.
- The Spartans carried the four goal lead into the halftime break.
- Pura got the second-half scoring started early in the third with his second goal of the day and
Brody MacDonald would also score.
- The MacDonald goal came between two MSOE man-up goals with AU leading 8-4.
- AU would score six times in the final 7:05 of the third and also which started an 8-0 run to end the game.
- Leader,
Chris Bucci, Pura,
Zach Bernstein (man-down goal), MacDonald (man-up goal) and
Jimmy Gorecki were the goal scorers in the third quarter portion of the run.
- The Gorecki goal in the third started his own 3-0 run as he scored the only two goals in the fourth with the last being a man-up tally.
- When the final horn sounded, AU was victorious 16-4 and claimed another regular season crown.
Points: Rielan Pura (10)
Goals:
Rielan Pura and
Jimmy Gorecki (3)
Assists:
Rielan Pura (7)
Ground balls: Ethan Dosen (5)
Caused Turnovers: Connor Hoeft (3)
Face-offs: Calvin Fritsch (5-of-10)
Saves: Phillip Gianelle (8)
Next action for the Spartan men's lacrosse team comes on Wednesday, May 3 when they host Benedictine University in the 2023 NACC Tournament semi-final with opening face-off set for 7:30 p.m. at Spartan Athletic Park in Montgomery, Illinois.
