WEST LONG BRANCH, NJ - Monmouth University's men's lacrosse team opened up a six goal lead and never looked back against NJIT, defeating the Highlanders, 12-5, at Monmouth Stadium on Tuesday.

Sophomore Bryce Wasserman (Southlake, TX/Grapevine Faith) tallied a hat trick while nine other Hawks scored in Monmouth's third win of the season. Junior Nick Hreshko (Warrington, PA/La Salle College High School) made five saves in net for the Hawks. Monmouth outshot NJIT, 43-24, in the game, including, 23-5, in the first half.

"It was good to see our guys play with a lot of effort and emotion today and bounce back from the weekend to pick up our third win on the season," said Monmouth Head Coach Brian Fisher. "To see some new faces step up and be able to play a lot of guys today certainly made for a fun afternoon."

Monmouth took a 3-0 lead after one quarter, peppering the NJIT defense to the tune of 15 shots, compared to just two for the visitors. Dan Bloodgood (Jackson, NJ/Freehold Twp.) got the scoring going with 4:52 left before Wasserman tallied his first marker of the game just 1:46 later.  

Wasserman scored his second and third goals of the game within 1:05 of each other and the Hawks led, 5-0, with 7:42 to play in the second frame. Freshman Hunter Jones (Abington, Pa./Abington Senior) tallied his first career goal with 4:52 left in the half to put the Hawks up, 6-0, a lead that would hold going into halftime.

NJIT started the second half with a man-up goal by Jesse Rice and assisted by Ryan Bradway. Freshman Eamon Campbell answered with his first goal of the season and the Hawk lead grew to 8-1 with 10:12 to play in the third quarter. The Highlanders got their second goal on a laser by John Roach, who followed it up with a goal four minutes later and Monmouth's lead rested at 8-3 heading into the fourth.

Monmouth outscored NJIT, 4-2, in the final frame, including three straight from 13:45 to 10:27. Roach scored his third for the Highlanders before Monmouth's Jake Henze (New Britain, PA/Central Bucks South) wrapped up the scoring with 2:37 left.

Defensively, Neil Ruppert (Chester, PA/Perkiomen Valley) had three caused turnovers in the game while MU won 14 of the games' 20 face-offs. Monmouth was a perfect 12-for-12 in clears and 1-for-1 on extra-man opportunities.

Goalie Nick Marzullo made 11 saves and collected four ground balls for NJIT while Roach finished with three goals in the contest to lead the visitors.

The Hawks will host Saint Joseph's this Saturday, March 12, at 1 p.m. in a game that is set to air on ESPN3.