PURCHASE, N.Y. – The Manhattanville men's lacrosse team had the game tied at four heading to the fourth quarter, but the Curry Colonels were able to pull away late and earn an 8-5 victory on Wednesday afternoon on GoValiants.com Field. In goal, senior Dom Poletto (Engelwood, Colo./Regis Jesuit) made a season-high 19 saves in the losing effort.
 
The Valiants jumped out to a lead just over five minutes into the contest on a quick transition when senior Billy Motherway found classmate Will Sahakian (Natick, Mass./Rivers School) on the side of the crease, who then rolled out front and scored to put Manhattanville up by a 1-0 score.
 
Curry answered back with three goals as the game progressed into the second quarter. With just under 10 minutes left in the half, this time it was Motherway to receive a pass from Sahakian behind the net and ripped a right-handed shot past the Curry netminder to pull the Valiants back within one at 3-2.
 
The Valiants tied the game at three as Sahakian scored once again with 6:19 left in the second quarter. Sahakian bounced the shot into the goal on the short side past Timothy McNair (Wilmette, Ill.) who had dropped to his knees to knot the game up.
 
The Colonels scored a man-down goal with 5:27 left in the half and took their 4-3 lead into the halftime break. On the first half, Manhattanville was outshot 23-9 but were only down by one on the scoreboard. Ground balls were also in favor of the Colonels at a 20-7 clip, while the Valiants turned the ball over 11 times to the Colonels' six.
 
In the second half, the Valiants tied up the game once again as it was sophomore Tom Tarczali (Stratford, Conn./Saint Joseph) to receive a quick pass from senior Peter Callahan (Fairfield, Conn./Salisbury School) to planted the ball into the back of the net in a man-up situation with just 1:09 left in the third quarter.
 
Manhattanville regained the lead early in the fourth quarter as it was Motherway to take yet another strong shot going across his body to the far post and put the Valiants up 5-4 with 13:46 left in the game.
 
Throughout the remainder of the game the Valiants were unable to put another tally on the board, as it was Curry to answer with four straight including three straight from the Colonels' Ronald Jensen (Zionsville, Ind.) to put the game out of reach at 8-5 with 3:29 left in regulation.
 
The game ended with Curry outshooting the Valiants by a 41-24 margin, with turnovers fairly close at 19-15 in favor of Curry as well. Faceoffs were another category that was close as Curry had won 9-of-16, with ground balls ending at 34-20 also in favor of the Colonels.
 
In goal, Poletto had his best game of the season as he picked up a season-best 19 saves as he fell to 0-4 on the season. On the other side of the field, McNair made 13 saves and picked up a pair of ground balls while he earned his first win of the season against no loses.
 
Manhattanville (0-4) will play on the road for its next three games including Saturday's contest at 1 p.m. on the road at Montclair State. Curry (4-0) will next take on Norwich at 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon at home.