A dominant second half by the Chestnut Hill College Men's Lacrosse team led to a 14-2 win over Caldwell University Saturday afternoon at Victory Field as the Griffins celebrated their seniors in style.

The Griffins improve to 5-4 overall and 3-1 in Central Atlantic collegiate conference games.  Caldwell falls to 3-5 overall and 2-2 in league play.

Prior to the start of the game, the Chestnut Hill College Athletics department and the men's lacrosse team recognized ten senior players who would be playing their final weekend home contest in a Griffin uniform.  Honored were attack players Nate Matthews and Cade Johnson; Midfielders Tommy Austin, Chase Snyder, and Jake Homan; defenders Brandon Madalion, Kyle Gartenmayer and RJ Rybicki; faceoff specialist Brandon Berghaier and goalkeeper Julius Sorino.  Each of the ten players were escorted to the center of the field by family and presented with gifts from the department and the team.

Back to game action, Noah Hammon scored five of his game-high six goals in the second half.  Matthews and Johnson scored three and two, respectively.  Johnson also added four assists on the afternoon to finish with six points.  Will Duddy scored twice, and Sam Slater added goal in the fourth quarter.  Jake Ballerini had two assists.

Defense was a key as Snyder led the team with three caused turnovers.  Homan and Silas Charles had two apiece.  Sorino had another stellar game in net, recording 13 saves while allowing a season low two goals, lowering his league leading goals against average to 7.75.

Berghaier won 15 of 18 faceoffs and had seven ground balls to lead the Griffins.  Snyder added four ground balls while five other players had three apiece with the Griffins totaling 39 on the afternoon.

Chestnut Hill scored just twice in the first half with Matthews tallying an unassisted goal with 18 seconds left in the first quarter and Hammon scoring his first of the game with 3:27 left in the second quarter, breaking a 1-1 tie and giving the Griffins a 2-1 lead at the half.

Berghaier set the tone for the second half as the Griffins came out swinging as the final two periods got underway.  CHC won the first five faceoffs with Duddy taking a pass from Ballerini and scoring just 42 seconds into the third quarter and Matthews tallying his second score just 34 seconds later.

Hammon then began to find the back of the net with regularity scoring three straight times to increase the Griffins leads to 7-1 left in the third quarter.  Johnson assisted on two of the goals and Blaise McCabe the other.  The third quarter scoring ended like it began with Duddy and Matthews scoring back-to-back goals less than a minute apart to give the Griffins a 9-1 lead heading into the final quarter.

The Cougars scored with 7:06 left to break the run of eight unanswered goals.  Chestnut Hill however scored five straight after the Caldwell score.  Johnson was involved in four of those scores, getting both his goals in a three minute time span and assisting on two others in that same time frame. Hammon and Slater both scored in the three minute span.  Hammon then completed the sock-trick with his sixth goal with just 30 seconds remaining to round out the scoring.

The men's lacrosse team returns to action on Saturday, April 13, 2024, with a game at Post University.  Start time is set for 2:00 p.m.