Moon Township, Pa. – Despite a hat trick from
Robert Morris University men's lacrosse junior midfielder
James Rahe, the Colonials dropped their home opener to Bellarmine University, 13-10, at a snowy Joe Walton Stadium this afternoon.
Robert Morris (0-2, 0-0 NEC) fell to 3-7 against Bellarmine (1-1, 0-0 SoCon) despite multi-goal performances from Rahe,
Luke Laszkiewicz, and
Adrian Torok-Orban.
The junior from Aldergrove, British Columbia opened up the scoring five minutes with an unassisted tally. His second goal three and a half minutes later was nearly identical as he carried it along the right side of the arc before beating Knights goaltender Drew Goethals.
Bellarmine's first goal was sandwiched between the two Rahe tallies. After the junior's second goal, the Knights added goals within a minute of each other to take a 3-2 lead into the second quarter.
After Bellarmine made it 4-2, senior attack
Jacob Ruest brought the Colonials within one as he freed himself up with a spin and threw a bouncing shot past Goethals for his first goal of the season. The Knights stormed back however with two unanswered goals to make it 6-4.
Torok-Orban scored his first career goal with 1:56 left in the first half when he gathered a feed from redshirt junior attack
Eric Wales at the doorstep and ripped the net. RMU continued its late surge with five seconds left as Wales set up Laszkiewicz to make it 6-5.
Rahe completed the hat trick 4:08 into the second half with a great individual effort, spinning past a Bellarmine defender before unleashing a strong left-handed shot.
The Knights responded 19 seconds later to regain the lead by taking advantage of a failed clear attempt.
Sophomore midfielder
Marshall Gibson got into the action with 8:30 remaining in the third stanza as Wales set him up on the doorstep with a pass from behind the cage to tie the game at seven all.
In the fourth quarter, Bellarmine rattled off three unanswered goals before junior midfielder
Eric Rankel stopped the bleeding with a tally after he split two Knights.
The Knights increased their lead to a game-high four goals by ripping the net twice in 1:14. Torok-Orban was the one to stop the run this time around with 3:49 remaining, and Laszkiewicz made it a two-goal game a minute later by scoring off a feed from Rahe on a man-up opportunity.
That's as close as the Colonials would get however, as Bellarmine's Austin Shanks would tally his sixth goal of the afternoon with a second left.
Freshman goaltender
Chase Rose made 14 saves in the loss.
Zachary Bryant and
Luc Magnan each caused two turnovers.
Robert Morris travels to Detroit next weekend in search of its first win. The non-conference contest between the Colonials and Titans is set for Saturday, Feb. 21 at 1:00 p.m. from Titan Field.
