Big First Half Sends #18/19 Army Past NJIT

Friday, April 26

Newark, NJ

2:45 PM

Army West Point

10-4

NJIT

2-13

Army West Point

NJIT

Nate Jones celebrates after scoring a goal at Navy.

Big First Half Sends #18/19 Army Past NJIT

April 26, 2019 | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

NEWARK, N.J. – Thanks to a high-scoring first half, the No. 18/19 Army West Point men's lacrosse team came away with a 19-6 victory at NJIT in the regular-season finale.

Army will be the fourth seed going into the Patriot League Tournament and will host fifth-seeded Holy Cross on Tuesday.

The Black Knights were led by Nate Jones, who tallied five goals and an assist for six points, while Brendan Nichtern finished with five points on five assists. Miles Silva had four goals in the win and Nicholas Garofano and Sean O'Brien added two scores as well.

AJ Barretto earned the victory in the cage with eight saves in one half of work. Matt Koziol had three saves in the second half and Greg Coleman stopped two shots in the fourth quarter. Evan Condon was great at the faceoff today with a career high 10 wins in 12 total faceoffs.

NJIT'S Aaron Forster was most of the Highlanders' attack with four goals and assist for five points. Alexzander Hunt and Riley Guma split time in net for NJIT. Hunt made six saves, while Guma stopped seven Army shots.

HOW IT HAPPENED

The Black Knights jumped out to an early 4-0 lead with game's first four goals in the opening 9:26 with Jones and Silva each scoring twice.
NJIT got on the board with Forster finding the net with 5:09 remaining in the first to make it 4-1.
Army closed out the first quarter with Garofano scoring twice and Silva netting the hat trick in the opening frame as the Black Knights led 7-1 at the end of one.
Nichtern racked up the assists in the quarter with four.
The Black Knights then outscored the Highlanders 7-1 in the second as well with a five-goal burst in the first 6:35 of the stanza.
Silva, Jones, O'Brien and Bennett Taylor scored during the run and it was 12-1 with 8:25 left in the half.
Ryan Darrow of NJIT found the net for the home squad to cut the lead to 12-2, but Army finished out the half with Jones and Connor DeWitt scoring to make it 14-2 at the half.
The scoring slowed down in the third quarter with the Black Knights adding three more tallies, including Jones' fifth of the day and Jeremy Angle and Brendan Ryan adding to the scoresheet as well.
The Highlanders found the net once with Forster recording his second and Army had a 17-3 lead at the end of three quarters.
NJIT had a 3-2 advantage in the final frame with Forster adding to his total with a pair of goals, while Jackson Boyd recorded his 14th of the year with Forster assisting.
Army got goals from Tommy Marino and Aidan Byrnes to give Army the 19-6 win and for Byrnes it was his first collegiate goal.

ARMY GAME NOTES AND HIGHLIGHTS

The Black Knights scored a season high 19 goals and reached double digits for the ninth time this season.
Army had a season high 14 goals in the first half as the previous high was 10 at Binghamton on March 12.
The seven goals scored in both the first and second quarters tied the most for a quarter this season.
With Jones' five goals today, he has passed Frank Giordiano '83 and former teammate Cole Johnson '17 for ninth on the all-time goal-scoring list with 112 career tallies.
Nichtern had five assists today to give him 39 on the season, which puts him in a tie with Tim Pearson '02 for fifth all-time in single-season helpers.
He passed Tom Cafaro '71 and Tom Sheckells '65, whom each had 34 and 35 in a single season, respectively. He also Cole Johnson '17, Jeff Bryan '04 and Jeremy Boltus '10 and they each had 38 in a single season.
Nichtern climbed up the single season points list as well and is now in a tie for 10th on that list with 63 points this season.
He passed Steve Heller '93, who put up 58 points in 1993 and 59 points in 1991. Nichtern also jumped Army Hall of Famer Bob Miser '60, who had 59 points in 1960. He climbed over Scott Finlay '78 who had 60 points in 1997 and John Glesener's 61 points in 2013.
Nichtern added to his point streak and he is now at 14 games with the five points against the Highlanders.
Garofano reached double digit goals with the two today and has 11 on the season.
Army recorded four caused turnovers and two came from Kyle Beyer.
Condon had a team high five ground balls, while Silva had four on the day.
Silva extended his goal-scoring streak to nine games and had four or more goals in a game for the fourth time this season.
Barretto reached double-digit victories for the second time in his career with the other coming in 2017 when he won 12 games.
He now had 36 career victories in the cage for the Black Knights.