ALFRED, NY – The Alfred University men's lacrosse team fell to visiting Northern Ohio Saturday afternoon 9-6 in nonconference action. Coming into the game, The Polar Bears averaged just over 15 goals per contest.
 
The Saxons (4-2, 0-0 Empire 8) were led by senior attack Jake Lynch (Whitney Point, NY/Whitney Point) with three points (two goals, one assists) while junior attack Joe Fornataro (Rochester, NY/Greece Athena) and senior midfielder David LaSpina (Webster, NY/Webster Schroeder) each finished with two points (one goal, one assist). Senior attack Allen Vitale (Rochester, NY/Brighton) and senior midfielder Samuel DiRisio (Prattsburgh, NY/Penn Yan) rounded out the scoring for Alfred.
 
Alfred got on the board early in the first quarter Fornataro was able to find the back of the net off the feed from Lynch at the 12:49 mark. Ohio Northern responded with a goal of their own from Shane Olsen to make it 1-1 with 11:24 left in the first.
 
Vitale was able to regain the lead for the Saxons in the second as LaSpina set the goal up with 8:39 left before halftime. The Polar Bears were able to tie things up once again as Anthony Provone scored to make it 2-2 with 4:28 left in the second. The Saxons were able to take a 4-2 lead going into halftime with goals scored from DiRisio and Lynch.
 
Ohio Northern was able to open up the third quarter on a 2-0 run to tie things up a 4-4 before Lynch notched his first goal with 11:15 to go in the quarter to make it 5-4. The Polar Bears were able to gain the lead at the 3:33 mark of the third quarter and were able to push the lead to 9-5 with 5:08 remaining in the fourth quarter. Alfred cut the deficit to three as Lynch scored his second goal with :51 remaining in the game.

"We shot well in the first half. We were shooting a lot of bounce shots and they were sinking but in the second half, we got away from that and that was just a mental mistake on our part," Head Coach Jason Lockner said. "It's something that we've got to clean up and we have to do it for four quarters if we want to get it done. When you face a good team and any time you make mental mistakes, a good team will capitalize on them. We'll be focusing on that in practice."
 
LaSpina and senior goalkeeper Drew Gardner (Whitney Point. NY/Whitney Point) tied the team in groundballs with six each while junior attack Anthony Ricottilli (Cortland, NY/Cortland) had five groundballs and sophomore midfielder Garrette Briggs (Horseheads, NY/Horseheads) finished with four. Sophomore defender Shane Weber (Hull, MA/Hull) and midfielder Frank Gavigan (Yorktown, NY/Yorktown) each had two caused turnovers.
 
Briggs had another strong outing in the circle as he went 13-for-19 in face-offs.
 
Gardner went the distance in goal, making 13 games on 22 shots faced.
 
The Saxons look to rebound as the host Oswego College next Tuesday, March 20, at 4 PM.