ASTON, Pa. - The Neumann University men's lacrosse team found its way back into the win column on Wednesday afternoon, picking up a convincing 18-8 victory over visiting Gwynedd Mercy University in Atlantic East Conference play.
 
Colin Blake (6 g, 3 a) and Drew Conlon (3 g, 6 a)were a two-man demolition crew for the Knights on the day, each notching nine points. Wyatt Belotti (4 g, 1 a) recorded a five-point afternoon, while Emmett Wexler tallied twice. Brett McLaughin led the team with six caused turnovers on the defensive end of the field and Brendan Risley made six saves in net in the win. Jack Newswanger returned to the lineup with an outstanding day on draws (18-of-21), while also recording his first goal of the season.
 
Gwynedd Mercy got the scoring started just under three minutes into the game to take an early lead, but it would be the Griffins only lead of the contest. Neumann retaliated with five unanswered goals the rest of the frame to take a commanding 5-1 lead after one. Wexler paced the Knights in the period with a pair of goals, while Kyle Daly also added a goal and an assist. Conlon and Justice Brovero were the other scorers for the hosts in the opening 15 minutes.
 
Neumann continued to roll into the second stanza, scoring the first goal of the period to open its lead to 6-1 at the 10:27 mark as Blake registered his first marker of the day. The scoring would come to a halt the rest of the half though, as neither team could really get much going offensively. Eight minutes passed before the next goal of the game, as the Griffins found the back of the net to bring their deficit back to four as the game headed to halftime with the score at 6-2.
 
Each team regained their scoring touch after the halftime break, as the third quarter produced 12 goals between the two sides. Early in the frame, the teams traded goals back and forth. Two Blake goals to open the period sandwiched a pair of Gwynedd Mercy goals to make it 8-4 in favor of the Knights with 8:26 left in the frame. The Griffins got the game's next goal at 6:53 to cut the Neumann lead to three at 8-5, but that was as close as the visitors would get. The Knights used a 5-0 run midway through the quarter to build up a comfortable 13-5 advantage. Blake played a part in four of the five goals with a pair of goals and assists, while Conlon added a goal and two assists in the run and Belotti tallied twice in just an eight second span. Gwynedd Mercy fought back with a pair of goals late in the quarter to make it 13-7, but the damage had already been done as the game moved to the fourth.
 
The hosts made sure there would be no comeback on the day as they pummeled the Griffins for five more unanswered goals to put the game way out of reach. Belotti tacked on two more markers, Blake and Conlon each added to their nine-point days with a goal apiece, and Newswanger capped off the scoring with a score directly off his 18th face-off win of the day to make it 18-7. The visitors got a meaningless goal late in the contest, but the Knights coasted the remainder of the afternoon to the 18-8 win.
 
Neumann (4-2, 3-1 Atlantic East) will have a few days off before heading to defending conference and national champion Cabrini University for a huge Atlantic East showdown on Saturday, April 17th. Game-time is scheduled for 1:00 PM.