TAMPA, Fla. (February 28, 2015) -
On a wet afternoon in Tampa, the seventh-ranked Spartans proved
to be too much for the Tars as Rollins fell, 11-5 , to open SSC
play on Sunday.
With the loss, the Tars fall to 2-3 after a 2-0 start while the
Spartans improve to 3-1.
Morgan
Baker led Rollins with a pair of scores while Stephen
DeFlumeri, Austin
Jackson and Andrew
Matthews each scored once. Adam
Stefanowicz, Carson
Buell and Jack
Vonarb record an assist apiece.
Sean Giampietro led the Spartans with a hat trick while Conor
Whipple and Bonny Calhoun each scored twice.
In goal, Thomas
Troiano suffered the loss for the Tars, finishing with 10 saves
in 60 minutes. Alex
Petsos went 8-19 on face offs while Lucas
Brush registered a team high three ground balls.
Baker drew first blood for the Tars, taking a pass from
Stefanowicz and ripped a shot past Arnold for his fifth goal of the
season, giving Rollins a 1-0 lead with 11:36 left in the first
quarter.
Tampa would go on to dominate much of the possession the rest of
the quarter, pulling even on Whipple's first of the game at the
9:32 before A.J. Leary finally gave the Spartans their first lead
of the game with 4:35 on the clock in the first.
A Calhoun score late in the quarter would push the Tampa lead to
3-1 heading to the second.
Rollins would be held scoreless in the second while the Spartans
tacked on two more to take a 5-1 lead heading into the half.
Baker would finally end the Spartan run, scoring his second of
the game less than a minute into the second half off the assist
from Buell to pull within three at 5-2.
Unfortunately, the Spartans would fire back with three more,
pushing their lead to 8-2 before DeFlumeri would beat Arnold for
his first of the day late in the quarter, giving Tampa an 8-3 lead
heading to the fourth.
Both teams would go scoreless the first seven-plus minutes of
the fourth before Jackson ripped a shot from the top center of the
box to cut the deficit to 8-4 with just over seven minutes left to
play. It was the freshman's first goal of his career.
It what was the theme of the afternoon, the Spartans would
answer the Tars score with two more scores to extend their lead to
10-4 with 5:39 left.
Matthews would add his first goal of the season with less than
two minutes left to play before Tampa added another in garbage time
to secure the victory.
Rollins will be back in action when they travel to Wingate on
Wednesday, March 4 at 3:30 p.m.
