Pride dominant to start road trip with 14-2 win over Missouri Valley

MARSHALL, Mo. - Returning to the road after a brief stop at home last Saturday, the Clarke University men's lacrosse team earned a ressounding 14-2 win over Missouri Valley College on Thursday night.

The two goals allowed is the fewest given up by the Pride defense all season as they only allowed MVC to score a single goal in the second and third quarters each as their goals combined to only face 12 shots on goal against for starter Jack Fritz to make six saves in three quarters then Jake Weller made four saves on four shots against in the fourth.

Part of that light night for the CU goalies was due in part to their effort on the faceoff with Abraham Agundez going 8-for-9 at the dot and Josh Pote winning five of his 10 draws for the team to go 13-for-19 while also causing 17 Vikings turnovers and grabbing 34 ground balls in total, led by Isaac Margala's eight GBs, over the 60 minutes of game.

To the offensive performance, Clarke scored three goals in the first, getting a pair from Justyse White sandwiched around Margala's only goal of the game to put CU up 3-0 after 15 minutes.

Missouri Valley would get the first goal of the second quarter but that would lead to five unanswered for the Pride as a different goal scorer had each tally in the period with Matt Archer scoring at 11:29, Henry La Belle at 10:31, Xavier Howard making it 6-1 at 9:18, Aiden Gudenkauf putting one in the net at 5:20, and Saige Moran closing out the half on a goal with 42 seconds left as Howard assisted on three of those five goals while scoring one of his own for a four-point period.

White would add two more goals in the second half to finish with a career-high four goals with Moran, Howard, and La Belle each producing another goal of their own in the second half along with the first collegiate goal for junior Hector Manzano-Luciano as the Lake Alfred, Fla. native got on the board with just under two minutes remaining in the third quarter.

Howard finished with eight points on the night, recording six assists along with his two goals while La Belle, Gudenkauf, and Moran also finished with mutli-point games.

Pride men's lacrosse will stay on the road in central Missouri for a Saturday afternoon matchup at Columbia College on Mar. 29 with a scheduled opening faceoff for 3:00 p.m. CT in Columbia, Mo.