BOSTON, Mass. – Beacons lacrosse continued their winning ways in 2021 as they knocked-off a tough WestConn team by the final of 19-15 Thursday evening at James Cotter Field.

THE BASICS

UMass Boston 19, WestConn 15

UMass Boston (4-0, 4-0 Little East Conference)
WestConn (2-2, 2-2 Little East Conference)

HOW IT HAPPENED
Thursday's win extended the Beacons win-streak to eight straight dating back to last season, when UMB started the year 4-0.  The eight straight wins marks the second longest win-streak in program history behind the 1997 squad which won 11 straight.

Despite a late push by WestConn, UMass Boston controlled a majority of the momentum on what turned out to be one of the coldest nights in April.  Gavin Admirand (Marshfield, Mass.) continued his offensive dominance scoring a game-high six goals, while scoring mates Conor Lenfest (Waltham, Mass.), Donovan Prozinski (Ashland, Mass.) and Darragh Fahey (Walpole, Mass.) combined 11 tallies respectively.

The face-off was dominated by Jack Dobrzynski (West Greenwich, R.I.) who went an impressive 36-for-38 to go along with 28 ground balls and three assists. 

Trevor Koppy (Attleboro, Mass.) notched another game changing performance between the pipes as he picked-up seven saves to improve to 4-0 on the campaign.

After a back-and-forth exchange in the opening minutes of the first quarter, the Beacons closed out the stanza with a pair of goals to take a 6-4 lead.  Admirand then recorded back-to-back scores to open the second to give UMB their largest lead at the time (8-4). 

WestConn responded with goals from Trey Aronow, Timothy Yannucci, and Eric Caldwell to cut the deficit to one with just over 10 to play before the half.

From that point on the Beacons would outscore their longtime rivals 5-3 to take a three-goal lead (13-10) into the break.

Despite being outscored 3-1 in the third, UMB managed to hold a slim one-goal lead heading into the final stanza.

Admirand pushed UMB's lead back to two less than two minutes into the fourth.  Stephen Cicchetti netted a man-up goal four minutes later to make it 15-14 in favor of UMB.  Less than a minute later, the Beacons would get one last offensive surge scoring three goals in a span of 33 seconds to take an 18-14 lead.

WestConn tried to close the gap in the final five minutes, but were held to just one goal, with Prozinski netting the final score of the contest with 2:24 remaining in regulation.

BY THE NUMBERS

• The Beacons outshot WestConn 52-39 and held a 46-15 advantage in groundballs. 
• The two teams were identical in successful clear attempts with 20 a-piece. 
• Dobrzynski broke his own program records for face-off wins (30) and ground balls (21). He previously set both of those records on May 3, 2019 against Plymouth State University in the Little East Conference Semifinals. He set the Division III and NCAA men's lacrosse face-off record with 36 face-off wins and finished tied for second in DIII history for ground balls.  
• WestConn finished 3-for-7 on man-up attempts, while UMB's special teams went 2-for-11
• Perry Cassidy made 16 saves in the loss as he fell to 2-2 on the season
• With his five goals, Lenfest now sits with 102 career goals which makes him just the eighth player in program history to cross the century mark
• Prozinski also achieved a career milestone following his four goal night as he now sits with 202 career points.  Prozinski played his first three seasons at UMass Dartmouth, which discontinued their lacrosse program last summer
• UMass Boston has now won six straight over WestConn dating back to the 2016 season

WHO'S NEXT

The Beacons will Mass. Maritime Academy this Saturday at 1 p.m. in the Beacons only non-conference game of the 2021 season.