Rivier Earns Programs First Men’s Lacrosse Win

Nashua, NH – The Rivier College men's lacrosse team earned the first win in program history today with a 9-6 win over first year program Wheelock College. Justin Chenevert (Wilmington, MA) picked up a hat trick with 3 goals in the game, Chenevert also added an assist for the Raiders. Leading goal scorer Danny Hooper (Wakefield, RI) added two goal for the Raiders and Alex Wezelis (Churchville, NY) tallied two goals as well.

Wheelock got on the scoreboard first when Adam Russo found the back of the net and Kevin Kareckas followed that up five minutes later to give the Wildcats a 2-0 lead. Chenevert got Rivier's first goal 2:30 into the second period to make it 2-1 in favor of the visitors. Wheelock took back a 2 goal advantage just 3 minutes later on a Zach Bushway score, but Rivier finished the half with four unanswered goals, two by Hooper and one each from Mark Sarro (Tewksbury, MA) and Wezelis, to take a 5-3 advantage into the half.

Wheelock opened up the second half with a goal to cut Rivier's lead to one, but that's as close as they would get as Rivier picked up three more consecutive goals to push the lead to 8-4. Chenevert scored Rivier's final goal after picking up a pass from Corey Oliverio (Salem, NH) and slicing to the net to make the score 9-5. Wheelock's Matt Burns finished of the scoring with just 41 seconds to play to make the final 9-6.

Burns led the Wildcats with 3 goals and 1 assist while Adam Russo, Bushway and Kareckas each added 1 goal. Goal keeper Michael Manning took the loss for the Wildcats, who finish their inaugural season with an 0-10 record, while recording 17 saves.

Junior Will Snider (Brooklyn, NY) scored a goal for the Raiders and Chris Benoit (Blackstone, MA) earned his first win in goal, allowing 6 goals and making 15 saves in the victory.