It was a second half of redemption for Siena Men's Lacrosse as the Saints rallied back after trailing by two goals at halftime to dethrone the defending MAAC Champions Marist with a 12-9 win on Saturday night at Tenney Stadium to avenge last season's defeat in the MAAC title game to the Red Foxes.
Siena (8-7) received a smattering of support up and down its lineup with six different players scoring its final six goals as the Saints outscored the Red Foxes 6-2 over the final 20 minutes.
Senior
Will Edell scored just his third goal of the season to help get it jump started by providing the first lead of the game to the Saints with 1:26 remaining in the third quarter.
After Marist's Jake Deacy tied it at 8-8 with his game-high fourth goal, Siena claimed the fourth quarter by a 4-1 margin with goals from
Jack Cavaioli, a man-up goal by
Patrick Radomski and one each from
Caden Olmstead and
Travis Fry.
Defensively, Siena made the right adjustments and only allowed three goals to the Marist offense after halftime.
Just 13 days earlier in the previous match up between the teams, Siena had allowed Marist to score 14 goals.
Andrew Arcuri did a steady job in net, making 12 saves on a .557 save percentage.
And, at the face off, Siena's
Dylan Pape shook off a slow start where he had won just three of his first nine face offs to finish 12-of-24 to go along with a team-high seven ground balls to keep Marist (8-7) honest.
Siena improved to 12-7 all-time in MAAC postseason games and 4-1 in head-to-head postseason meetings with Marist.
The win for the Saints also snapped a nine-game losing streak against the Red Foxes.
Siena had last defeated Marist in 2014.
The teams are back to a split in the all-time series with each school winning 22 times.
In the other pairing on Saturday in the MAAC postseason, No. 3 Manhattan outscored No. 6 Quinnipiac 7-2 down the stretch to capture a 14-13 win.
Now, No. 1 Sacred Heart will take on No. 5 Siena while No. 3 Manhattan will play No. 2 LIU in Thursday's Semifinal pairings.
