Non-league game a warmup for Lincoln contest Monday

WEST GREENWICH – Mount St. Charles lacrosse team has had success early in 2017 season after moving down to Division III. On a sunny and windy Saturday afternoon, they continued their solid play and helped out a team just starting up in the league and the sport, defeating Exeter/West Greenwich, 12-0, in a non-league matchup.

The Mounties are 1-0 after beating East Providence, 13-0, on April 3, and the Scarlet Knights are a club team in their first year with lacrosse. Longtime lacrosse coach in Warwick, Erik Stachurski, is cobbling together a schedule for the Knights by calling coaches around the league. The Knights hope to officially be a part of the Rhode Island Interscholastic League next spring.

“I’ve known Eric [Stachurski since he was at Pilgrim,” Mountie head coach David Roderick said. “He was looking for games. I have a young team; it’s mostly freshmen. We figured, we could come down, and it would be a nice opportunity for us to work on things and for him to work on things.”

The Knights handled themselves well for the first time in competition, and they kept it close at 2-0 after the first quarter. The Mounties ended up rallying with efficient offensive production in the later quarters and finishing up with 12 goals on 15 shots.

Freshman Nicholas Curran led the way with four goals and one assist. Sophomore Tyler Bourque had three goals and four assists. Seniors Ryan Sheehan, Benjamin Rizzo both scored one goal. Freshmen Walter Pickering III, Jake MacKinnon, and Christopher Baxter provided one goal each. Freshman Matthew Guay had one assist.

“What I like about this team,” Roderick said of the Mounties. “They are very young, but the senior leadership has been outstanding. There’s a lot of mentoring and communication going on, and we just continue to develop. It is exciting; it’s a great team to be around.”

“I think it’s good for the team,” Roderick said of the move down to DIII after last season’s 1-12 record in - DII. “For one, we’re young. The second reason is size. There are less than 200 boys in our school. It was kind of one of those things, after the past couple of years. We had the talent to play, but physically playing against some of the teams like Cumberland – kids that were 6-1, 6-2 running down the field. I think D-III is where we belong.”

Lincoln will visit Mount on April 10 at 4:00 p.m.