GREENVILLE, Pa. – The Marietta College men's lacrosse team opened the season with an offensive explosion, and set a new scoring record, as they defeated Thiel College, 28-4, on Saturday (Feb. 15) afternoon. The goal total was the most in program history, surpassing the 25 goals scored against Franciscan University back in 2020. With the win, Marietta opens the season at 1-0 overall and the loss puts the Tomcats at 0-1 overall.
"It's always nice to start the season off 1-0," said Marietta head coach
Ben Suchomma. "What's even better is when you can look at the score sheet and see 13 different players in the goal column."
Marietta lit up the nets in the first quarter as they scored on nine different occasions. Ninety seconds into the matchup,
Logan Podgorski (Pittsburgh, Pa./Bethel Park) took a pass from
Josh Walters (Cleves, Ohio/Taylor) and deposited it into the goal for the first goal of the season.
Chase Franklin (Pittsburgh, Pa./Mt. Lebanon) wasted little time adding the next score and
Aiden Evans (Columbus, Ohio/Westerville South), in his Pioneer debut, scored three goals in a four-minute span to give Marietta a 5-0 lead.
Joshua Nyland (Gardnerville, Nevada/Douglas) and Nate Hamilton, also making their Pioneer debuts, would add a goal apiece and veterans Franklin and
Nate Neal (Bethel Park, Pa./Bethel Park) also added goals and Marietta led 9-0 after one quarter of play.
The Pioneers put up another nine goals in the second quarter. Neal and Hamilton added to their score totals and
Tommy Imhof (Wooster, Ohio/Wooster) scored a quick goal after he got a pass from Neal, who had just won another face-off seconds before. Walters and
Thomas Zerman (Westerville, Ohio/Westerville South) followed with scores in rapid succession and another pair of Pioneer newcomers,
Alec Anderson (Loveland, Ohio/Little Miami) and
Danner Dorothy (West Stockholm, N.Y./Potsdam Central), got their first career goals. Marietta would go into intermission with a 18-0 lead.
In the second half, the Pioneers extended their lead four-minutes in as Podgorski scored off of a Walters assist. Thiel finally got on the board as Thadd Bell scored to break the long scoring drought. Zach Melin added a pair of scores for the Tomcats, but Marietta closed the period with three additional scores and took a 23-3 lead into the final period. Marietta would tack on five more scores, including
Sam Leininger (Avon Lake, Ohio/Avon Lake) first score of the season and the first score of
Aidan Lundgren's (Fairfax, Va./Vista Murietta) career, and would go on to claim the 28-4 victory.
James Cipollone (Forest Hill, Md./Calvert Hall) worked the first half in goal for the Pioneers and saved his only shot opportunity.
Cal Henthorne (Wooster, Ohio/St. Edward) took over in the second half and faced five shots, four of which were on goal, but made no saves in the game.
The Pioneers were led by Nyland with four goals. Neal, Anderson, Imhof, and Evans all finished with three goals apiece.
Caden Alkire (Ellicott City, Md./Centennial) led with four caused turnovers and
Jason Mach (Canonsburg, Pa./Canon-McMillan) won 13-of-19 in face offs in his Pioneer debut.
Marietta will be back in action next Tuesday (Feb. 18) for their home opener at Don Drumm Stadium. The Pioneers will battle Washington and Jefferson College with the game scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
Fans can follow all of the Pioneer teams all year long at
pioneers.marietta.edu. You can also follow the Pioneers on Facebook at
facebook.com/MariettaCollege and @MariettaPioneer on X and Instagram.
