Contact: Tyler Bremner, Sports Information Graduate Assistant

Feb. 22, 2025 – The North Central College men's lacrosse team dominated on both sides of the ball Saturday in their season opener against Benedictine University, lifting the program's fifth straight Chicago Maple Ave Cup and mark coach Jay Farrell's 100th career victory.

Entering the first period North Central (1-0) found room two minutes in for Dylan Andersen to sneak a pass to Ty Nagy for the Cardinal's first goal of the 2025 season. After a Gavin Braley faceoff win, Anderson found his opportunity for a goal to lock the score at 2-0 with 12:10 to go. Over the next ten minutes, Aidan Murphy logged three saves to keep Benedictine (0-1) scoreless. The final two and a half minutes saw Dalton Lutz and Evan Watanabe deal out assists to Cole Westphal for his first career goal and Nagy for his second goal of the match.

With the score at 4-0, the next ten minutes saw an Eagle defensive effort to fend off nine shots while only finding possession for three shots themselves. As the clock ticked down under four minutes, Westphal found Charlie Snyder for his first goal of the season. The following faceoff had North Central win and score 50 seconds later marking Nagy's third goal of the match with help from Luke Paris. Benedictine finally retaliated on the ensuing faceoff to get on the board 6-1 with 1:45 remaining. Lutz would fire off the final shot before halftime narrowly being saved by Colin Doyle in goal.

Coming out of halftime the Cardinal offense continued the pressure, scoring four minutes in after Zachary McClure connected with Snyder for his second goal. Andersen followed suit after the next faceoff to push the Cardinals ahead 8-1 with just under 10 minutes remaining. Over the next eight minutes of action, the Eagles were only allowed two more shots before Lutz added his name to the scoring sheet to put the Cardinals at 9-1.

The same story continued in the final 15 minutes of regulation as North Central continued outshooting the Benedictine offense. Andersen started the scoring in the fourth period with an assist from Westphal to mark his third goal of the match. The Eagles finally broke through the Cardinal defense to inch within eight scores with over five minutes left. Snyder would dash the hopes of a miraculous comeback 90 seconds later with help from Wyatt Hunt to push ahead 11-2. As the final seconds winded down, Kyle Carollo connected with Seth Rosen for his first career goal to seal the match at 12-2.

The Cardinal offense had Andersen, Snyder, and Nagy each score three goals and earn over three points apiece. Watanabe led the defensive effort with three caused turnovers and three ground balls with Jason Smith following with two and three. Murphy locked down the net for all four periods earning ten saves.

North Central faces their first match on the road against the University of Dubuque on Wednesday. Access the full schedule HERE.

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