Grantham, PA - Messiah men's lacrosse raced out to a 6-0 lead at the end of the first quarter en route to a 14-10 defeat of Albright College on Saturday afternoon.
 
Matthew Franken led the Falcons with four goals and three assists, while Lorenzo DiPasquale, Liam Lilienthal, and Joseph Franken tallied two goals apiece. Sam Stengel was very strong in goal, saving 15 shots and only allowing six goals.
 
Albright managed to best Messiah in both shots (39-36) and shots on goal (26-21), but the Lions were repeatedly turned away by Falcon goalkeepers to the tune of 16 saves. The Falcons were also able to survive while committing eight more penalties (9-1) than the Lions, for a total of 10 penalty minutes, including a stretch of time down three men.
 
Falcons Firing On All Cylinders Early
 
As mentioned, Messiah tallied six times in the first quarter, building a 6-0 lead at the end of the period. DiPasquale got the onslaught started just 27 seconds in, scoring off a feed from Matthew Franken. After a Luke Hall goal, Liam Lilienthal and DiPasquale scored within 13 seconds of each other to give the Falcons a 4-0 lead at the six-minute mark. DiPasquale's second goal was very impressive, picking up the ground ball off the faceoff and racing down the middle of the field for a rip from straightaway that screamed past the Lion goalkeeper.
 
A few minutes later, with a man down, Matthew Franken spun out of a double team off a restart and took the ball all the way to the goal by himself, getting shoved in the back right before a shot that found the back of the net while he tumbled to the ground. Joseph Franken would add a score with just ten seconds left in the quarter to make it six-straight.
 
Cetrone Comes Alive for the Lions
 
The second quarter saw two goals apiece for Messiah and Albright, with both Lion goals coming from star senior Cam Cetrone, who leads the Middle Atlantic Conference with four goals per game. After back-to-back Falcon goals early in the third quarter from Liam Lilienthal and Joseph Franken, Cetrone scored twice more in a span of 30 seconds to make the score 10-4 in favor of Messiah. However, Messiah would take a 12-5 lead at the end of the period, with 15 minutes left to play.
 
Late Albright Rally Not Enough
 
Garrett Amsbaugh and Matthew Franken put the Falcons up 14-5 with 8:23 left, and after Cetrone's fifth goal of the game, Messiah pulled starting keeper Stengel. Albright scored four times over the last five minutes, but the end result was never really in doubt as the Falcons took a 14-10 victory.
 
Messiah improves to 4-4 on the year and 2-0 in the MAC Commonwealth.
 
Next Up
 
The men continue conference play on Wednesday when they travel to Alvernia University for a 7:00 p.m. start.