Bentley Heads Back to Pace for NE10 First Round Matchup on Saturday Night
Waltham, Mass. – The Bentley men's lacrosse team is set to take on Pace in the first round of the NE10 playoffs on Saturday night at 7:00 pm in Pleasantville, N.Y.
The game can be seen on NE10 Now: https://portal.stretchinternet.com/pace/
It will be the second matchup between the two teams in a week, after the Falcons travelled down there last Saturday. In a high scoring game, the Setters won it 21-16 despite Bentley putting up what was then a season high in goals.
The Falcons had a strong regular season that saw them go 9-4 overall and 7-4 in the NE10 to earn the No. 5 seed. They had several big wins, especially over Assumption on April 10, an 11-8 road victory, and over Saint Anselm at home, 10-8 three days later.
Those two wins were part of a five game winning streak that also included wins over Franklin Pierce, Southern N.H. and Saint Michael's. The streak lifted them into the USILA rankings, where they still reside at No. 17.
Pace, on the other hand, will come into the postseason ranked 11th by the USILA. They went 12-3 in the regular season and 8-3 in the NE10 to earn the No. 4 seed.
In the game six days ago, senior Alex Astarita (Bedford, N.H./Bishop Guertin), junior Matt Brooks (Brunswick, Maine/Phillips Exeter) and sophomore Joey Tesoriero (Huntington Station, N.Y./Half Hollow Hills) all had hat tricks. Senior Sam Hurley (Medfield, Mass./Medfield) had three points to go above the 100 career points milestone.
Bentley trailed just 11-8 at halftime, and was within 17-14 early in the 4th quarter, but Pace started to pull away with a 3-0 run to take a 20-14 lead with just over 7:00 remaining.
This will be the 26th all-time meeting between Bentley and Pace, with Bentley leading the series 14-11. They last met in the postseason in the 2010 first round, a 12-6 Bentley win. The Falcons also won last season's meeting, 10-9 in Waltham. Brooks scored the tying goal with 1:44 left, followed by Kris Campbell (Longmeadow, Mass./Longmeadow) scoring the winning goal at 1:27.
The other first round game on Saturday will pit the No. 3 seed Merrimack against the No. 6 seed Saint Anselm. The top two seeds, No. 1 Adelphi and No. 2 Le Moyne, have byes to the semifinals on May 1st. The Bentley-Pace winner will travel to Adelphi, and the Merrimack-Saint Anselm winner will head to Le Moyne.
The NE10 Championship game will take place on Saturday, May 4 at the highest remaining seed.