Box Score

THROGGS NECK, NY (February 25, 2012) – Tied 2-2 after the first period, sophomore goalie Andrew Nicol made 10 saves over the next three periods and his offensive players generated eight straight goals, to lead the Vassar College men's lacrosse team to a 12-4 season opening victory over New York Maritime on Saturday afternoon.

Playing under blustery conditions with high wins and cold temperatures, Nicol turned in a 15 save performance and stymied the Privateers over the course of the contest to help provide new head coach Marc Graham with his first intercollegiate victory. The Brewers got goals from seven different players, led by a hat trick from senior attack Christopher Toffoli.

The Brewers (1-0) will travel to Manhattanville next Saturday, March 3 for a 4:00 p.m. game at GoValiants.com field. Maritime (0-1) next hosts Maine Maritime on March 4 at Noon.

"I was pleased with the effort today," said Graham. "The guys really have been working hard and I was happy to see them put together some really good stretches of lacrosse. We made some mistakes, but we can learn from them and get better. Having seven different guys score just shows that we play a team style game. Andrew Nicol was outstanding as expected. We named our captains on Friday night, and the team selected Jeremy Gottlieb, Matthew Pearce and Andrew Nicol."

The Privateers held only one lead, getting the opening goal of the game at the 12:35 mark when junior midfielder Kevin Winter slid one past Nicol. The Brewers tied the contest at 2-2 with back-to-back goals from junior midfielder Ryan McCarthy and senior attack Jack Gross and then scored four straight to head into intermission leading 6-2.

Nicol blanked the Privateers in the second and third periods. The Brewers responded by exploding for eight straight goals, four to close out the second period, two in the second and two in the third. 

Three consecutive goals from Toffoli to close out the third period and into the early stages of the fourth period provided Vassar with a comfortable 10-2 lead. While Nicol faced 36 total shots, Maritime tallied only two goals, one at the 7 minute mark of the fourth period and one with 90 seconds left in the contest.

For the Brewers, Gross, sophomore Max Herman and senior midfielder Matthew Pearce had two goals each. Freshman midfielder Sean Brazier had four assists in his collegiate debut.

Maritime got two goals from junior midfielder Matthew Messina. Maritime split its goalie duties with starter junior Nick Barbuto and freshman Tyler Donovan each making three saves. Vassar had 23 shots in the contest.