The men’s lacrosse team cruised to victory last Saturday, dismantling the Lafayette Leopards 18-7. The game was never a close call, with the Raiders reel-ing off seven unanswered goals to start the game and leading by as many as 12 goals late in the third quarter. Colgate saw goals from five different players in the first quarter, and 10 Raiders tallied goals on the afternoon.

Junior Peter Baum led the way once again, tallying seven points on five goals and a pair of assists. Baum has tallied at least five goals in four games this sea-son. He continues to lead the nation in points and goals.

Senior Jeff Ledwick followed up his heroics against Lehigh with his best game as a Raider, tallying five points with two goals and three assists. First-year Ryan Walsh and sophomore Bren-don McCann had three points each, both tallying a goal and dishing out two assists. Walsh has tallied at least one point in every game to start out his Colgate career.

Given the complete domination from start to finish, Colgate got many differ-ent players into the game. All four goal-ies on the roster saw time in net, and first-year midfielders Jack O’Callaghan and Matt Reyes-Guerra-Dunn both tallied their first ever collegiate goals.

Colgate looked like the vastly superior team from the opening whistle. Lafay-ette had no answer for the first offensive unit for Colgate, as the Raiders could es-sentially score at will. Coupled with the fact that junior Robbie Grabher won 15 of his 19 face-offs on the day, the ball was frequently in the Colgate offensive zone. The Raiders shot the ball early and of-ten, blowing many outside shots past the Lafayette goalies. The Raiders dominated the Leopards in shots, taking 17 to Lafay-ette’s three in the first period, and held a 12-5 shot advantage in the second quar-ter. Colgate led 7-1 after the first quarter, and 11-2 at halftime.

The offensive onslaught continued in the second half, as senior John Donnally tallied his second goal of the game off the opening face-off, followed with a goal by Ledwick a few minutes later to make the score 13-2. Lafay-ette then responded with a goal of their own, but the Raiders then tallied two more to in-crease their lead to its largest on the afternoon at 15-3.

“Going into the game, we knew that there were areas in the Lafayette defense that we could take advantage of,” junior Matt Baker said. “The coaches put to-gether a great game plan that we were able to successfully execute. As long as we ran our offense and were unselfish with the ball, we were going to have scoring opportunities.”

Lafayette found a goal to reduce the lead heading into the fourth quarter, but at this point, Colgate had subbed out senior goalie Jared Madison. He tallied six stops for the Raiders in 42 minutes of action.

Coach Murphy was able to get ev-ery active Raider playing time in the final period with the game in hand for Colgate. This quarter proved to be the most even of the four, with both teams tallying three goals apiece.

“Getting a sizeable lead is definite-ly helpful for us if we want to work in other players or try a new offensive set,” Baker said. “Offensively, we are looking to continue to run our offense, mak-ing sure we stay crisp. Defensively, they look to stay focused and continue to maintain the same intensity throughout.”

With the win, Colgate clinched a bid to the Patriot League Tournament and control their own destiny for the top-seed in the tournament as well as the right to host.

If the Raiders get a win at Bucknell this Friday, they will take the top seed in the Patriot League standings. The field for the tournament has been set, and the same four teams that made the Patriot League tournament last year will go again in 2012. The other three schools set to play are Army, Bucknell and Lehigh. The Raiders final Patriot League regular season game is this Fri-day at Bucknell. The game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. and will be televised on CBS College Sports Network.

“This game definitely has the in-gredients for a shootout,” Baker said. “The main thing that we are focus-ing on this week is putting together a full 60 minutes. This week will be similar to the Lehigh week in the sense that we are working on break-ing down the defense with unself-ish ball movement. As long as we execute our offense and take away the known on defense, we should be successful.”

Contact Steve Urban at [email protected].