Crawfordsville, IN — The Oberlin College men's lacrosse team cruised to a 14-6 victory against the Wabash College Little Giants in the team's season finale.
Senior
Jay Messina finished his Oberlin career in style as he dished out five assists to go along with two goals for a seven-point day. Freshman
Michael Muldoon scored a team-high three goals, while
Tom Decker finished the game with two goals and three assists.
Oberlin got off to a hot start scoring three goals in the first seven minutes of play capped by one of Messina's tallies at the 8:00 minute mark. Wabash finally broke through the Yeomen defense with 4:39 on the clock, but the Yeomen quickly answered when
Jake Parentis beat the Little Giants keeper off a feed from Messina to give Oberlin a 4-1 first quarter lead.
Wabash cut the Yeomen lead to 5-3 when Steven Stark took advantage of a Yeomen penalty with 11:26 left in the second. The Yeomen once again responded by scoring the next four goals of the game capped by
Tom Decker's 32nd goal of his sophomore campaign with 12:09 left in the third quarter.
Stark would cut the Yeomen lead to 9-4 with 3:29 left in the third, but Oberlin buried the next five goals of the game to blow the game open. Muldoon kick started the 5-0 run off a feed by Decker with less than two minutes left in the third. Later Decker connected with
Matthew Barry to cap the run and leave no doubt in the eventual outcome with a 10 goal lead with 7:35 left.
Oberlin outshot Wabash 54-29 and had a 57-39 advantage in ground balls. The Yeomen controlled the pace of play all afternoon, as they were 16-of-24 at the logo with
Max McAllister and
Maurice Freese each winning eight face-offs.
Calvin Filson recorded his 19th career victory for Oberlin and finished the day with 11 saves. Wabash's Max Atkins took the loss and finished with 21 saves.
The Yeomen finish the year 5-10 and 2-6 in the NCAC, and will look to improve upon that next season. The team bids farewell to its eight senior members and will start preparing for 2020 in the non-traditional fall season.
