IMMACULATA, Pa.- The Immaculata men's lacrosse team returned home on Saturday evening to host Gwynedd Mercy in an Atlantic East clash. Immaculata scored its first goal of the contest as the Macs never trailed en route to the 9-5 victory over the Griffins. This victory also snaps a 10-game losing streak against Gwynedd Mercy dating back to the 2010 season.

"First and foremost, I tip my cap to Gwynedd Mercy," opened head coach Matt Justice. "Gwynedd hustled from beginning to end and really never gave up. With that said, I am very happy with how we carried out our game plan this evening. Our plan was to focus on doing the little things right and do what we do best, which is what helped lead us to the victory."

In the first quarter, Immaculata scored its first goal just 27 seconds in as Sean Evans converted a man-up opportunity off an assist from Anthony Inserra to give the Macs a 1-0 lead. Jackson Fonseca-Webb scored his first goal of the game with 11:33 to play in the first quarter off Inserra's second assist of the game before Steve Long scored his first goal of the contest with under 2:30 to play in the first quarter to give Immaculata a 3-0 lead heading to the second quarter.

With 10:33 to play in the first half, Gwynedd Mercy broke through for its first goal of the contest to make the score 3-1.  With 5:15 remaining in the half, Long scored his second goal of the evening before Evans tallied his second of the contest just under 30 seconds later to claim a 5-1 lead late in the half, which also forced a Gwynedd Mercy timeout. Out of the timeout, Gwynedd Mercy won the faceoff and scored quickly to cut the deficit to 5-2 but Immaculata had an almost equally fast response as Evans took a perfect feed across the crease from Long to extend the lead to 6-2 with 4:12 to play in the first half. Long scored his final goal of the half with 54 seconds to play to give Immaculata a commanding 7-2 lead heading to the halftime break.

Gwynedd Mercy opened the second half scoring just 17 seconds in to cut the deficit to 7-3 in the early stages of the third period. With 10:08 to play in the third quarter, Long scored once again to stretch the lead back to 8-3. Gwynedd Mercy added another goal with slightly under five minutes to play to cut the Macs lead to 8-4 heading to the third.

In the fourth quarter, Gwynedd Mercy opened the scoring once again as the Griffins scored their fifth goal of the contest with 12 minutes to play to cut the Macs lead to 8-5. Wit 4:47 to play, Inserra scored another man-up goal to give Immaculata a little breathing room with a 9-5 lead, which the Macs would go on to win by.

Cole Metzger had another outstanding day between the pipes for Immaculata as he followed up his record-tying 28 save effort on Wednesday with a 20-save performance against Gwynedd Mercy to limit the potent Gwynedd Mercy offense.
"Cole was a guy who after a few of our tough losses earlier this season had a lot long conversations about wanting to put things together and center himself better and take a bigger role as a leader. Over the last few games he has done this and his play has followed. I couldn't be more proud of what he has done over the course of the last few games," concluded Justice.

In addition to the big night from Metzger, Bobby Bausman also had a huge night for the Macs as he ended with the game with a team-high 12 ground balls and four caused turnovers while also winning 12 of 16 faceoffs for Immaculata. Long's five-point effort also enabled the senior to hit the 100-point marker for his Mighty Mac career.

As a team, Immaculata ended the night with a 31-22 edge in ground balls. Immaculata also held the Griffins to going just 2-of-6 on its extra-man opportunities.

Immaculata will be back in action next Saturday afternoon at Wesley with that contest set to begin at 1 p.m.