Acorn

The men's lacrosse team has been making a habit of dominating its opponents lately. The Rangers have won two of their last three games and their record remains untouched in the Middle Atlantic Conference.

On Wednesday night, the Rangers handily defeated Vassar College, 12-3. In a non-conference match up, the Rangers came out strong, scoring 3 consecutive goals before adding another goal to finish the first quarter ahead 4-1. Drew then tallied four second half goals to secure the victory, including back-to-back goals from sophomore Tom Stitt, Jr.

Head Coach Tom Leanos called the Rangers performance a "good team effort," despite the fact that they have played several games in a couple of days.

"This game was the third game for us in four days and I was nervous, but our guys got us on the scoreboard early, and we played a solid game," Leanos said.

Stitt led the way for the Rangers with 4 goals, while sophomore co-captain Gil Arbitsman scored 3 goals. Junior Phil Rosenau had a solid performance with 3 goals and 2 assists.

On Monday night, the Rangers hosted conference foe King's College. Stitt started the Rangers off strong, scoring the first goal of the game. However, King's responded with a goal of their own only a minute later. In the second quarter, Stitt scored three more, and the Rangers added seven more in the second half to secure the victory, 11-7. "We had great team intensity, ball control and team defense," Leanos said.

Drew outshot King's 43-33, but even more impressively, the Rangers picked up 44 more groundballs than King's.

Senior Craig Middleton had 2 assists, picked up 21 groundballs and won 14 of 17 face-offs. Leanos commended the play of Middletown, Stitt and sophomore goalie Jason Woodford, who all had "great individual efforts."

Last weekend, the Rangers dropped only its second game of the year to Swarthmore College, 12-10. Swarthmore dominated from the beginning. They scored 3 consecutive goals to start the game and again right after halftime. Arbitsman led the Rangers with 3 goals, while junior Dan Moffo had 2 assists.

"We had some trouble clearing the ball in the third period which put us in a second half hole," Leanos said.

After the Rangers contest against Vassar, they hit the halfway point of their season -- all remaining games are in-conference. Leanos believes that next week will be both challenging and defining for the Rangers. "We have to compete for every loose ball and we have to communicate both offensively and defensively," he said.

The Rangers are currently 5-2 overall and 3-0 in the MAC. They travel to Widener University in a MAC match-up tomorrow at 1 p.m.

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