ST. DAVIDS, Pa.– Eastern University Men's Lacrosse scored three of the first four goals of the game, but the  visiting Washington College Shoremen scored six times in the third quarter and held off a late Eastern charge to earn a 16-12 win in the season-opener for both teams. Christopher Fanelli and Nicholas Fanelli each scored three goals in the loss.

Eighty seconds into the match, Avery Porter scored on Eastern's first shot of the season. The Eagles then doubled the lead on the first of the year from Nicholas Fanelli. Jake Gottschalk, Jason Poole, and Nicholas Fanelli each had good looks to stretch the lead to three, but the Eagles were unable to find the net and Washington College attackman Connor Garrison scored his first of five on the day to break the Eastern run.

Nicholas Fanelli found a little space from behind the cage to put the Eagles up 3-1, but the Shoremen scored the final three goals of the quarter for a 4-3 lead.

Gavin Stark scored from the doorstep on a feed from Nicholas Fanelli to start the second, but the Shoremen scored the next three goals to grab the lead for good. Christopher Fanelli and Lucas Turdel added second-quarter goals, but Washington College had a 9-6 edge at intermission.

The Eagles won 12 of-16 first-half faceoffs and had a 24-13 edge in ground balls, but the Eastern shooters could not make their 24-16 shot advantage pay off.

Garrison scored the first three goals of the second half, and the Shoremen added a fourth before Connor Bachman scored on a dodge down the right alley.

Eastern scored the first three goals of the fourth quarter to pull within five with nearly 11 minutes to play. WAC goalie Cole Corrigan made three strong stops to keep the Eagles from closing the gap further and the Shoremen added an insurance goal with 4:22 on the clock.

That insurance goal proved important as Pat McClain scored directly off the ensuing face-off and the Eagles added a quick 12th goal on another won faceoff. Anthony Firmani won the draw and Ryan Poole gathered the ground ball.  Corrigan stopped the shot from Nick Litzenberger, but the rebound bounced loose. A Shoreman defender pushed the ball back toward his own goal to keep the Eastern attack away, but the pass eluded Corrigan and the Eagles were within four with four minutes to play.

Needing to be nearly perfect the rest of the way, the Eastern attack could not get there. The Eagles had the ball for nearly the entire last four minutes. The Eagles fired shot, after shot, but the WAC defense held the Eagles on the perimeter to keep the lead safe.

Nicholas Ciampaglio had seven ground balls and three caused turnovers to pace the Eastern defense. McClain and Firmani combined to win 18-of-31 faceoffs. 

The Eagles (01) are at Swarthmore on Wednesday night.