Box Score

CANTON, N.Y. - St. Lawrence University, the No. 1 seed in the Liberty League Tournament, held off a resilient Rensselaer team, the second seed, in the men's lacrosse championship game by the score of 12-9, earning the conference’s automatic bid into the 2006 NCAA Championship.

RPI came out and forced St. Lawrence to play at its tempo, which helped the visitors get out to an early 2-0 lead. Josh Secora scored 3:57 into the game to put RPI ahead and teammate Adam LoGiudice gave the Red Hawks a 2-0 lead at the end the opening quarter

Rensselaer sophomore netminder John Thibdeau kept the Saints off the scoreboard in the early going, allowing RPI to continue to put pressure on offensively.  It led to two more goals, this time from PJ McComb and Alex MacDiarmid, to extend the visitor’s lead to 4-0.
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The Saints (13-3, 6-0) got on the board with 5:57 to play in the first half when junior Nick Mastine scored a man-up goal to close the gap to 4-1. Sophomore attack Ben Prime was not far behind, scoring only 1:15 later to make the score 4-2. The Red Hawks got one back when McComb scored with 2:09 on the clock to complete the first half scoring.

St. Lawrence responded in the third quarter, scoring four goals while holding RPI to one to even the score at 6-6 headed into the final quarter.  Freshman Peter Carroll scored just over a minute into the half, followed by Mastine’s second of the afternoon to bring St. Lawrence to within a goal at 5-4. After MacDiarmid netted RPI's sixth goal of the game, the Saints got goals from rookies Tyler Moore and Carroll in the final five minutes to even the score heading into the fourth quarter.

SLU captain Andy Centauro, who entered the fourth quarter with two assists in the game, scored back-to-back goals to open the fourth quarter and give the Saints an 8-6 lead. Centauro then found Moore, who notched his second man-up goal of the afternoon at the ten minute mark to put St. Lawrence ahead 9-6.

Prime scored with 8:00 remaining, followed by sophomore Ben Buskey tallying his first goal of the season with only 7:43 to play to put the Saints up 11-6. Rensselaer refused to go away though, and in a dramatic momentum swing, scored three goals in a 1:41 span to close the gap to 11-9 with 5:49 to play in regulation.

Freshman PJ Santora won a key face-off for the Saints, who then maintained control in the offensive end as time ran off the clock. Having to press, the Red Hawks aggressively went after the ball, but took two penalties in the final 1:24 of regulation. Centauro scored his third goal of the day with 26 seconds remaining for the final margin.