Contact: Emily Zadny, Sports Information Graduate Assistant, 630-637-5302

Box Score

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (Feb. 24, 2018) – Looking to maintain momentum from its dominating season opening performance the week prior, the North Central College men's lacrosse team scored an 8-4 victory against Calvin College (0-3) on Saturday afternoon at Eagles Stadium in its first road game of the season.

Jacob Ray won the opening faceoff for North Central to give the Cardinals an early possession and scoring opportunity. The Knights picked up the ground ball of a Jared Weaver's blocked shot for its first possession of the game, but Brandon Pearl came up with the caused turnover and Noah Parrill capitalized on the possession with the first goal of the game and his fourth of the season.

The Cardinals came away with the following faceoff but Calvin's goalkeeper Mitchell Wong was not ready to let North Central extend the lead, coming up with saves off of shots from Tommy Huizinga, Gavin Foote, and Parrill. The Knights would struggle to muster a shot until the halfway point of the period when Michael Winkler's two attempts went wide. Calvin would have the extra-man opportunity following a penalty on Pearl, but could not convert it into a goal as the North Central took back possession and Huizinga found Tanner James for the Cardinal's second goal of the game. Winkler scored Calvin's first goal of the game but not after North Central had added a goal from Weaver to remain in control of the first period, 3-1.

Both teams went without a goal in the first half of the second period until Parrill found Huizinga at 8:28 and put North Central ahead 4-1. The Knights responded two minutes later with a goal from Austin Bontreger, but a turnover following the faceoff gave the Cardinals a scoring opportunity, resulting in a goal by James. North Central suffered an off-sides call that gave the Knights a man-up opportunity that they would capitalize on with a goal from Griffin Sparling to cut the score, 5-3 with three minutes remaining in the half. With just over two minutes remaining, James would send the Cardinals to the locker room with a 6-3 lead following his third goal of the game off of an assist by Foote.

Calvin appeared to regroup after halftime, warding off shots from Ray and Weaver before a second goal from Bronteger at 12:33 brought the Knights within two. But it would be North Central's game from there on out as the Cardinals scored once more in the third period before closing out the game with a last minute man-down goal from James, assisted by Parrill, to give North Central an 8-4 win.

James led North Central's offense with four goals and Nick Pardo, Parrill, Huizinga and Weaver each scored one. Parrill led the team with three assists, bringing his two-game total to 14, while Sean Tomonari paced the defense with four caused turnovers and Ray tallied eight ground balls.

The Cardinals (2-0) travel down the road to Aurora University on Wednesday, Feb. 28 with game time set for 4 p.m. A link to live in-game coverage can be found HERE.