Men's Lacrosse | 2/24/2017 9:55:00 PM

Game Program | Live Stats | Live Video

GAMEDAY (Feb. 25, 2017): The Engineers make their season debut with a non-league contest against Keene State at East Campus Stadium ... The Owls opened their schedule with a 16-13 win at Western New England on Tuesday.

NATIONALLY-RANKED: Rensselaer enters action ranked 13th in Division III, according to the first national poll of the regular season ... Keene State is among the schools receiving votes.

ALL-TIME: Rensselaer has played the Owls five times in the program's history - each coming in the past five seasons ... RPI is 2-3 against Keene State, including losses each of the past two seasons.

LAST SEASON'S MATCHUP: Keene State rallied from a 6-0 deficit to post a 14-12 win over No. 20 Rensselaer ... Breanainn McNeally had four goals, Matthew Gilman scored three times with two assists and JT Kelly tallied three times for the Engineers ... After falling behind 7-2 in the first quarter, the Owls outscored RPI 12-5 over the final three periods ... Tyler Reilly had five goals, including the game-winner with 57 seconds left ... Bryan Rotatori had three goals and three assists, and Hunter Arnold also potted three ... Mathew Howe was outstanding in net for Keene, making 17 saves ... RPI's David Gibbs had 18 stops ... The Owls won 19-of-30 restarts on the X.

CAPTAINS NAMED: RPI will have four senior captains in Chaz Bell, Matt Hall, Breanainn McNeally and Mark Surgent ... This the first season as captains for each of them ... Bell, Hall and Surgent are midfielders and McNeally is an attack.

TWO TABBED: RPI's Matt Hall and Breanainn McNeally were selected as Division III Preseason All-America Honorable Mention by Face-Off Yearbook ... The duo were both All-America Honorable Mention after the 2016 season ... As a junior midfielder, Hall finished second on the team with 32 goals and 45 points ... He scored eight man-up markers and a game-winning goal ... He was All-Liberty League First Team and IMLCA All-Region Second Team honoree added 13 assists, a team-high 97 shots (59 on goal) and 20 ground balls ... McNeally was also an All-Liberty League First Team choice after breaking the school record for goals in a season with 54 ... He also led the team in points with 67, man-up goals with 14 and game-winning goals with four. 

AT THE X: Junior midfielder Oliver Kaija handled many of RPI's faceoffs a season ago and finished  first on the team in ground balls with 68 ... He won 50.4% (143 of 284) of his draws over the course of 17 games played.

IN GOAL: Senior David Gibbs is a third-year starter who had an 11-5 record with an 8.49 goals against average and .540 save percentage last season ... He was on the All-Liberty League Second Team.

WELCOME BACK: RPI returns 39 student-athletes from a team that finished 13-5, advanced to the championship game of the Liberty League Tournament and played in the NCAA Tournament last year ... There are eight seniors, nine juniors, 12 sophomores and 10 freshmen ... Six of the team's top seven scorers are back. 

KEENE ON TUESDAY: The Owls outscored Western New England 6-2 in the third quarter to overcome a halftime deficit on their way to a 16-13 road victory ... Senior Bryan Rotatori led Keene with four goals and 10 ground balls ... Juniors Hunter Arnold and Frank Bacarella each tallied a hat-trick. Arnold also added a team-high four assists ... Mat Howe stopped 14 in the win.