Men’s Lacrosse: Mauri Shoots Fords Past Garnet
SWARTHMORE, Pa. - Haverford senior attack Joe Mauri and sophomore midfielder Dean Granoff hooked up four times to lead the visiting Fords to a 10-7 win over Swarthmore in the season finale for the Garnet on Saturday afternoon. Freshman midfielder Todd Friedman led the Garnet attack with two goals and two assists.
With the season-high crowd of 407 making plenty of noise, the Garnet got off to a fast start. Sophmore midfielder Ivano Ventresca opened the scoring with an unassisted goal 2:58 in. The line of Ventresca, Friedman, and Adam Miller '08 was clicking all afternoon long and wound up accounting for five of the seven Garnet goals.
Neither team could find the net for the next seven and a half minutes, but then came a flurry of goals. First, Granoff found an open Mauri for the first time to tie the game with 4:28 to play. Then, Miller won the ensuing faceoff and got the ball to Friedman, who took the ball right up the gut and beat Haverford netminder KC Peterson to retake the lead at 4:18. Finally, after another clean faceoff win by Miller, Friedman fed a wide-open Matt Perez '06 near the net, and Perez tickled the twine for the 10th time in the 2006 and the 15th and final time of his Swarthmore career.
The Granoff-Mauri connection scored the next two goals, with the first coming just 46 seconds remaining in the first period and the second with 10:34 left in the second. Haverford added two more goals—including junior Adam Goldstein's first of the season—to take a 5-3 lead before Garnet midfielder Gavin Nurick '07 closed the margin to one with 28 seconds left in the half.
Perez, the team's lone senior, and his parents were honored in a short ceremony during halftime.
Granoff took a break from passing the ball and scored a goal himself on the power play with 12:28 left in the third quarter, extending the lead back to two. Haverford entered the game with the top power play in the Centennial (11 for 22) and wound up converting one of two opportunities.
The Garnet extra-man crew came up with a goal of its own six minutes later as Nurick fed junior attack Ryan McKenna to reduce the lead back to one with 6:04 left in the quarter. Just over a minute later, Miller took a Friedman pass on the perimeter and tomahawked the ball past Peterson to even the score at six.
Mike Distler was the beneficiary of another Granoff assist as the Fords retook the lead with 1:35 to play in the third.
Granoff and Mauri scored just eight seconds apart early in the fourth quarter to extend the Ford edge to 9-6. Entering the period, Swarthmore had won 11 of 16 faceoffs, but the visitors took three of five draws in the fourth to stymie the Garnet comeback attempt. Friedman scored with 7:38 remaining, but the Fords controlled play until Granoff fed Mauri one last time with 4:12 to play. Peterson made five saves in the period to ice the win.
Swarthmore outshot the Fords 39-21 and committed 10 fewer turnovers (17) than the visitors (27) but could not get past Peterson, who made 18 saves.
Miller and junior defender Anthony Orazio scooped up a team-high six ground balls. Orazio also caused four turnovers. Garnet goalie Frank Mazzucco '08 made five stops.
The Garnet finish their season at 4-10 overall, 1-7 in the Centennial.