Five unanswered goals by the College of St. Rose erased a three goal lead as the Chestnut Hill College Men's Lacrosse team dropped an 11-8 decision to the Golden Knights Saturday afternoon in Albany, New York.

The Griffins fall to 0-2 overall while St. rose improves to 3-1.

Six different Griffins scored a goal, led by Jake Ballerini and Cade Johnson who scored two apiece. Johnson also added an assist to finish with a four-point day.

Daniel Grubb had five ground balls to lead 14 Chestnut Hill players that recorded at least one ground ball in the contest.  R.J Rybicki had five caused turnovers while Kyle Gartenmayer added four.

Ballerini opened the scoring, taking a pass from Daniel Myers to put the Griffins ahead 1-0 with 9:27 left in the first quarter. Johnson scored his first goal of the game at the 7:04 mark with Will Duddy giving the assist on the score.   Noah Hammon added an unassisted goal with 55 seconds left to boost CHC's lead to 3-0. 

Rybicki and Nate Matthews scored in the first four minutes of the second period to give the Griffins a 5-2 lead.  Johnson assisted on Rybicki's goal while Duddy added his second assist of the day on Matthews' score.

An own goal by the Griffins cut the lead to 5-3 by halftime and started the string of five unanswered scores from the golden Knights as they took a 7-5 lead heading into the final quarter.

The Johnson-Duddy combination struck early in the fourth quarter, as Johnson tallied his second score and Duddy his third assist to pull CHC within one 7-6 with 13:22 left in the game.    St. Rose followed with three straight goals over the next 2:40 to take a 10-6 lead.

Chestnut Hill did not get their final two scores until the final two minutes of the game with Ballerini scoring with 1:34 left (Evan Farlow assisting) and Cooper Jackson scoring an unassisted goal with 14 seconds left to round out the scoring.

Alex Johanson led the Golden Knights with four goals while Cam Smith had three.

The men's lacrosse team returns to action on March 9, 2024 when they travel to Pace University for a regional matchup.  First faceoff is at noon.