After suffering a heart-breaking one-goal overtime defeat against Rensselaer last weekend, the Clarkson University Men's Lacrosse got back on the winning track with a non-league victory over Oswego State, but the Golden Knights are right back into conference play on Saturday when they take on Union College.
Clarkson is 5-3 overall and 0-2 in conference games thus far, while the Dutchmen, ranked 10th in the country, are 8-1 overall and 1-0 in the Liberty League. Both teams have played challenging schedules, with the Knights having the seventh-toughest schedule according to laxpower.com. Union's schedule isn't rated as strong, but the Dutchmen are 3-1 against ranked opponents, with their only loss coming as a one-goal defeat against Cortland State.
Clarkson is 14-20 all-time against the Dutchmen, including an 8-6 win in 2013 when the Knights rallied to score the final three goals for the victory, ending a four-game losing streak to Union.
The Dutchmen are led offensively by Rob Santangelo, who has 21 points on 10 goals and 11 assists this year. Santangelo has enjoyed some offensive success against Clarkson in the past two seasons, recording a goal and an assist in 2013 and producing four goals in a 12-9 win in 2012. Richard Gregory has been all over the field for Union, leading the team with 14 goals and adding in 24 groundballs and seven caused turnovers. Nolan Stauffer also had 11 goals and seven assists.
Union's goalkeeper Stefan Basile has posted some impressive numbers, averaging 6.10 goals per game allowed and stopping 66.0% of shots on goal. He has also grabbed 31 groundballs, which trails only faceoff-man Connor Hall's 40 groundballs. Hall has won 57.7% of his faceoffs (86-for-149). Defensively, Adam Sands leads the team with 13 caused turnovers, adding in 18 groundballs, and Kyle McQuiggan is second with 11 caused turnovers, while also scooping up 20 groundballs.
For Clarkson, junior Mark Nortz (Lowville, NY) continued to lead the team in goals (12) and assists (9) and points (21), though his first two figures are tied with other members of the Knights. Classmate Corey Herrington (Camillus, NY) has nine assists this year, and the junior attacker was a key playmaker in 2013 when he assisted on the final three goals of the 8-6 win over the Dutchmen. Another junior, Matt Gold (Pittsford, NY) has 12 goals and two assists, and freshman Ryan St. Croix (Camillus, NY) has scored 11 goals and four assists, including three man-up goals. St. Croix leads the squad with 60 shots.
Defensively, the upperclassmen have led Clarkson as senior Rick Clement (Cotuit, MA) ranks second on the team with 23 groundballs, trailing only faceoff-man Dylan Broomfield (Clinton, NY), who has 39 in six games. Senior Brian Freeland (East Berlin, CT) has 20 groundballs and junior JD St. Croix (Camillus, NY) has 19 groundballs. Junior goalkeeper Harrison Washuta (Maple Grove, MN) is stopping 51.3% of his shots faced and has a 10.04 goals against average.
