Grantham, PA - The Falcons of Messiah College overpowered the Crusaders of Alvernia University with a 17-2 victory and improved to 9-6 overall and 5-2 in the MAC Commonwealth. Messiah executed superb team offense as 10 different Falcons tallied goals in the dominating victory. Matthew Franken led Messiah scorers with four goals, while Tyler Goglio, Trey Hanshew, Dylan Gillisse and Luke Hall notches two goals a piece.

Throughout the first half of play, the Falcons aggressively attacked the Crusader defense and used long offensive possessions with excellent looks at the cage. In addition, Alvernia struggled the find offensive possessions to the dominance of Brady Marburger at the faceoff x.
 
Marburger went 13-14 in faceoffs with his lone loss coming from a violation. These possessions created by Marburger resulted in a dominant first half as the Falcons led 12-0 heading into the third quarter.
 
In the beginning of the contest Chris Bry, Matthew Franken, Justin Bradley, Luke Hall, Dylan Gillisse, and Blake Knobloch accumulated the first six goals of the game. Next, Joseph Franken dodged and found brother Matthew Franken who executed a well-placed shot in the top corner of the cage.  Matthew Franken went on to tally two more goals in his impressive second quarter performance.
 
The Falcons continued to execute their offense in the second quarter and poured on more goals from Tyler Goglio, Dylan Gillisse, and Luke Hall for the comfortable 12-0 lead at half.
 
 In the second half, the Crusaders finally found the back of the net with a goal from Andrew Ritchie. Tyler Goglio immediately responded with a goal from a precise feed by Isaac Zorn. Alvernia captured their second and final goal of the game when leading scorer Jarret Abernethy ripped a shot in the back of the cage.
 
The goal of the night came at the end of the third quarter when Tyler Goglio fed a cutting Noah Wright who finished with a behind the back shot. Rounding out the scoring for Messiah was Trey Hanshew (2) and Steven Dunn who recorded his second goal on the season.
 
Statistically, the Falcons bested the Crusaders in shots (62-26), shots on goal (37-12), ground balls (34-24), face offs (18-5), and committed fewer turnovers (17-25).
 
Messiah will be back in action this Saturday when the host the Dutchmen of Lebanon Valley College at 4:00 p.m. in their final regular season game of the year.