FINAL SCORE
Saint Joseph's 15 (4-1)
Monmouth 10 (1-3)

PHILADELPHIA – The Monmouth University men's lacrosse team pulled within four goals twice in the third quarter, but was unable to climb out of a first-half deficit in a 15-10 loss at Saint Joseph's on Saturday afternoon at Sweeney Field.

Max Brooks and Connor Macrae each registered hat tricks, Cade Stratton scored a goal and handed out two assists in the loss.

Saint Joe's continued its impressive start to the season and built a 9-2 lead in the second quarter that proved to be too much to overcome for the visiting Hawks. From that point, Monmouth scored five of the next seven goals over the ensuing 15 minutes to make it an 11-7 game, before the home side pulled away.

NOTES & QUOTES
"We are proud of the way we responded coming out of halftime. In the first half we didn't play with the focus or toughness needed to compete with good teams. In the second half we played together and executed on a higher level as we fought to pull ourselves back in the game. We can take a lot from this game if we learn how to play with a combined toughness, focus and execution for 60 minutes as we did today in the second half."
- Head Coach Brian Fisher

- The game featured brothers, Monmouth's midfielder Luke Cole and Saint Joseph's faceoff man Zach Cole.
- Monmouth is now 12-12 all-time against current NEC teams.
- Monmouth fell to 0-8 all-time against Saint Joseph's.
- The Hawks wore their white helmets with midnight blue jerseys and shorts.

NUMBERS CRUNCH
- Connor Macrae registered his fourth career hat trick and his eighth goal in his last two games. He leads the team with nine goals this season and has 23 for his career.
- Max Brooks equaled his career high with his second-career hat trick.
- Brooks now has 29 career goals, six this season, and 47 career points.
- Cade Stratton scored a goal and added two assists. Stratton has seven points this season and became the eighth Hawk in program history to reach 60 career points.
- Luke Cole, Sean Ketchen and Matt Soutar each scored in the game. Cole and Ketchen each have two goals this season and Soutar scored the second goal of his career.
- Mike McIntyre and David Cormack each contributed one assist.
- Soutar won 11-of-27 faceoffs and led Monmouth with eight ground balls in the game. Soutar moved into fourth in program history with 119 career ground balls, passing Neil Ruppert (2014-17).
- Thomas Gray and Jack Gertie led the Hawks with two caused turnovers apiece.
- Noah Lode equaled his career and Monmouth program single-game record high with 17 saves.

NEXT UP
Monmouth has a week before its final non-conference road game of the season at NJIT on March 12. Opening faceoff is set for 7 p.m. in Newark, NJ.