ANGOLA, Ind. – The Trine University men's lacrosse team secured their seventh straight win, marking the best start to a season in program history, with a 17-3 victory over visiting Thomas More University. The 7-0 start sets the new program benchmark with the next best coming in 2011 when the team started 6-0.
The Thunder once again built a commanding lead in the contest to secure the lopsided victory. Today the team scored the first 15 goals of the game over the course of three quarters.
They opened the day with four goals in the first period. Junior Collin Custer scored in the first minute, followed by sophomore Charlie Anderson and a pair for freshman Peter Piccillo. Anderson and senior Andrew Douglas also added an assist each in the period.
Piccillo scored the first goal of the second period, which saw the team score four more. Freshman Chris Molnar scored his only goal of the game as the second with Anderson and junior Klein Burkholder adding the other two. Douglas added two more assists in the quarter with Anderson and senior Noah Markus each adding another.
After halftime, Custer struck again building the team's lead to 9-0 with 12 minutes remaining in the third quarter. Custer scored a second later on in the same period while also tallying an assist. Four other members of the team tallied goals including junior Aiden Theobald and freshmen Jackson Bell, Will Gonia and Brendan Dale. Douglas also added his fourth assist of the day.
The final period finally saw the Saints get on the board, but the Thunder matched them goal for goal to reach the final score of 17-3. Piccillo scored his game-high fourth goal of the game to start the period, with Douglas adding his game-high fifth assist. Markus and sophomore Patrick Doyle scored the other two goals for the team.
Douglas's five points was also a team-high with three other members of the team ending the game with four points. Piccillo ended with four goals, Custer ended with three goals and an assist and Anderson finished with two goals and two assists.
In goal, junior Nick DiPaolo started the game and recorded the win his seventh of the season. He finished the game with two saves. All told six different goalies saw action in the game for Trine. Sophomore Hunter Borski played during the fourth quarter and recorded a team-high three saves while freshman Zade Gawrys got the team's final save.
A pair of Thunder finished the game with three caused turnovers including senior Eli Pfotenhauer and sophomore Will Gonia both leading the team. Pfotenhauer also added four groundballs tied for second on the team with freshman Sean Kohloff. Leading the team with nine groundballs was senior Jack Konicek who had nine to go with his 12 faceoff wins.
The team will continue the season when they host Earlham College on Wednesday, March 29. The game is scheduled for 7 p.m.
