The Castleton State College men’s lacrosse team was able to secure home-field advantage in the playoffs and top seed as they beat Maine Maritime 21-7 on Saturday afternoon at the Spartan Stadium.
“I hope our guys know the value of getting home field advantage,” Head Coach Bo McDougall said. “We are fortunate to have the support of our great fans and it truly is an advantage for us.”
Zach Davidson and Alex Green led the Spartans with five goals each and recording four and one assists respectively. Sean Paradis added two goals while dishing off four assists and Taylor Swarter scored four goals in the win.
Castleton started the scoring early as Davidson netted a goal in the first 2:29 of the game and the Spartans were able to score seven more goals in the quarter, including two from Green, Swarter and Davidson to take an 8-1 lead after the first quarter.
In the second quarter the Mariners came out strong with Nicholas Betti scoring 44 seconds into the quarter. Castleton answered seven minutes later as Davidson scored another goal but a very short time later Maine answered that goal with one of their own. Davidson netted another 30 seconds later and both Castleton and Maine-Maritime scored once more before half bringing the score to 11-4.
“We have a lot of younger guys on our squad,” Castleton goalie Peter Latulippe said. “We are really clicking right now and headed to the playoffs in stride, ready to go.”
In the second half Castleton was able to keep control of the game and outscored the Mariners 10-3. Green scored 20 seconds in but Peter Moore came back with a goal for Husson. The Spartans tallied off four goals in a row after including two more goals for Green, one for Paradis and one for Zach Devoid.
Davidson and Swarter recorded their fifth and fourth goals respectively in the fourth quarter; Alex Denny scored as well in the fourth as the Spartans won 21-7.
“We came out and played the whole 60 minutes today,” Latulippe said. “Home field advantage is great to have; we get opportunities to put on a show for our fans the whole tournament.”
With the win the Spartans improve to 10-5 on the season and an undefeated NAC record at 7-0, the Mariners fell 6-6 overall and 6-2 in conference play.
The final game of the season for the Spartans is Tuesday at home against Johnson State at 7 p.m.

“We knew we were a young squad coming into the season with 16 freshmen,” McDougall said. “We had a tough out of conference schedule this season and that along with our senior leadership, helped our young guys learn and now we are going into the postseason with home field advantage throughout.”