Lamar Carter / NJIT Athletics

Box Score

Siena SIE 0-1

NJIT NJIT 2-0

Siena SIE

0-1

Final

Feb. 10, 2024

NJIT NJIT

2-0

Score By Periods
Team	1	2	3	4	OT	F
Siena SIE	6	5	4	0	0	15
NJIT NJIT	4	4	6	1	1	16

Game Recap: Men's Lacrosse | 2/10/2024 5:54:00 PM

Men's Lacrosse Rallies For OT Win Over Siena, First-Ever 2-0 Start

Postgame Interview

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2/18/2024 | 1:00 PM

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Feb. 18 (Sun) / 1:00 PM

at Mount St. Mary's

History

Recap
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NEWARK, N.J. — For the first time in school history, the NJIT men's lacrosse team has opened the season 2-0 after the Highlanders rallied for a 16-15 victory over the Siena Saints Saturday afternoon at Lubetkin Field at Mal Simon Stadium.

Down by as many as four goals in both the first and second half, NJIT (2-0) kept chipping away, remained in striking distance and took advantage of a mistake by Siena (0-1) in the waning moments of regulation to seal the comeback win.

The victory also avenges last year's one-goal loss (12-11) to Siena in Loudonville and marks the first-ever win for the Highlanders over the Saints.

"Today was a wild game of lacrosse, but I'm proud of our group for their resiliency and the belief that they have in each other," head coach Eric Wolf said after the triumph.

HIGHLANDER LEADERS

Garrett Muscatella set a new career high with five goals while Jesse Roth (3 G, 2 A), Owen Corry (2 G, 3 A) and reigning America East Offensive Player of the Week Arthur Miller (3 G, 2 A) joined Muscatella with five points on the afternoon.
Beck Gozdenovich and Michael Rettberg added one goal each, Teddy Grimley contributed an assist, and Jack Bowie assisted on two goals while scoring the overtime game-winner.
Billy Kroeger went 22-32 from the faceoff spot while also setting a program single-game record with 17 ground balls. Kroeger also set a school record for faceoffs won in a game, besting the old mark of 20 that he tied at Delaware on Feb. 5, 2022.
USILA Team of the Week selection Hank Bethel also matched a program mark with four caused turnovers, last achieved by Josh Schreibeis vs Wagner on March 04, 2023. He was one of nine Highlanders to record a CTO and one of three (Teddy Grimley with three, Josh Failla with two) with multiple CTOs.
Reigning America East Defensive Player of the Week and USILA Team of the Week honoree Liam Brown made 17 saves in the game, moving his career total to 587 and becoming the Highlanders' all-time leader in saves.

1ST QUARTER

Siena opened the game's scoring with an unassisted goal 42 seconds into the match, but the Highlanders responded twice with goals by Muscatella (from Roth, 13:17) and Rettberg (from Arthur Miller, 11:59) to take their first lead of the contest at 2-1.
The Saints would tie the match at 2-2 with a solo score with 8:31 remaining and add a third at the 6:19 mark.
Roth would stop Siena's mini run and knot the game at 3-3 with his second goal of the season with 5:36 to go.
Siena would reply with a run of three straight goals to take a 6-3 advantage with 4:01 remaining.
Muscatella would put away the last goal of the quarter (3:23) off a dish from Corry to trim NJIT's deficit to 6-4.

2ND QUARTER

NJIT opened the period by killing the remainder of a Siena EMO and transitioning from a Brown save to a Keegan Ford-to-Miller connection to pull within one, 6-5 (14:30).
Siena would extend their lead to four, 9-5, with three straight scores by the 8:57 mark.
Roth would add a second strike with 8:43 to trim Siena's lead back to three, 9-6.
The Saints would reach ten goals and push the score to 10-6 on a man-up goal with 7:57 to go.
The Highlanders would score the next two goals, with Miller converting solo (5:43) and Corry getting his first of the game (3:50).
Siena answered with their 11th to make the score 11-8 with 3:29 remaining in the half.

3RD QUARTER

The alternating of opening goals continued into the third as Siena struck first (12:34) to take a 12-8 lead.
NJIT would score four of the next five goals to claw back to within one, 13-12. Corry (10:32), Muscatella (9:42 from Roth; 6:25 from Miller) and Gozdenovich (5:33 from Grimley) were responsible for the offensive push.
Siena maintained their buffer a bit over a minute later (4:20) with a goal that moved their lead to 14-12.
Miller would join Muscatella with at least a trio of goals with a successful man-up score off a Bowie assist to make the score 14-13 with 2:14 on the clock.
A Siena goal with 17 seconds left would give the Saints a 15-13 lead but Billy Kroeger's successful faceoff win and dish to Muscatella within six seconds brought NJIT within one once again, 15-14, before the quarter ended.

4TH QUARTER

The quietest period of the game had one goal in it, and it was one for the home team. Roth secured his third goal of the game with 2:16 to go to tie the game at 15-15.
NJIT had a chance to win it in regulation but a shot by Benjamin Roberts with six seconds left sailed high.
However, Siena was called for a 30 second delay of game penalty, so NJIT held possession for the final seconds to go into overtime with a man advantage.

OVERTIME

NJIT started the four-minute extra period a man up and only needed one attempt to win it. Excellent ball movement ended with Corry finding Bowie in front of net for the most important goal of the game.

OTHER NOTES

Brown officially passed former Highlander Nick Marzullo's 579 career saves from 2015-18 to become NJIT's all-time saves leader.
Roth recorded his first multi-game game since his penultimate contest at Bellarmine on May 2, 2023 against Mercer (2 G) and his first hat trick game since April 22, 2023 (Bellarmine at Detroit Mercy).
Muscatella's career day surpassed his previous high of four goals from last season against UAlbany on April 15, 2023. He has increased his career best in single-game goals each year - 2 in 2021, 3 in 2022, 4 in 2023 and now 5 in 2024.
Kroeger's ground ball total bested the previous program mark of 13 from the inaugural 2015 season by former Highlander Zachary Melillo against UMass Lowell (Mar. 7).
Two games into 2024 - and for the first time ever - NJIT has posted two games with two different Highlanders scoring at least five goals (Arthur Miller at St. John's, Garrett Muscatella today). The last time there were at least two such games by the same person was in 2019, when NJIT all-time leading scorer Aaron Forster netted nine goals against Quinnipiac (Mar. 2) and seven at Hampton (Apr. 6).
NJIT is now 2-2 all-time in overtime games after winning their last two over the last two seasons (2023 season finale at UMass Lowell on Apr. 29 and Saturday).
Dating back to that UMass Lowell victory in 2023, NJIT has now won three straight games as a program for the first time ever.
The 31 combined goals are tied for the second-most in an NJIT win. The Highlanders' 26-9 win at Hampton (Apr. 6, 2019) holds the combined and NJIT single game records, while the 24-7 win over Hampton (Feb. 1, 2020) is second with today's combined performance.
Saturday's win was also: NJIT's fourth ever when trailing after three quarters (all three wins in 2023 plus today); the 12th win in program history; the third-ever one-goal win and fifth by two or fewer; and the program's sixth-ever home win, giving NJIT an even split between its program wins (6 at home, 6 on road).