EDWARDSVILLE – John Wink (Glenside, PA/Abington) helped the Wilkes University men's lacrosse team to a fast start and eventual 9-6 victory over visiting DeSales University on Senior Day at Schmidt Stadium Saturday afternoon. The victory pulled the Colonels into a four-way tie with King's, Manhattanville, and FDU-Florham for third place in the Middle Atlantic Conference Freedom (MAC Freedom) standings at the end of the regular season but Wilkes missed out on a top-four spot and its first conference tournament appearance since the program rebirth in the tiebreaker head-to-head scenario between the four teams.

Wilkes finished the regular season at 3-4 in the MAC Freedom and 8-8 overall with the eight wins doubling the team total from last season. The Wilkes victory knocked DeSales out of MAC Freedom Championship contention as the Bulldogs finished the season 2-5 in the conference and 5-10 overall.

The Colonels raced out of the gates with three goals in the first five minutes of action. John Luna (Valley Center, CA/Valley Center) scored for the 22^nd time this season off an assist from Jeremy Kachel (Ephrata, PA/Ephrata) to open the scoring. Wink then put away the next two goals with the first coming off a nice pass from Nico Lorenzo (Howell, NJ/Howell) as he drove toward the net and dump to the open Wink in front of the goal for the finish.

DeSales got on the scoreboard with 6:31 left in the first 15-minute quarter.

Wilkes began to pull away with a great start to the second quarter. Nicholas Ruggiero (Califon, NJ/Voorhees) scored off an assist from Wink with 12:19 left and then Wink followed off a pass from Luna with 9:40 left. Ruggiero then completed his hat trick with two more goals to push his season total to 36. The first came off an assist from Kachel and the second from Lorenzo as the Colonels continued to share the ball well to go up 7-1 with 5:01 left in the quarter.

The Bulldogs added two goals in the final 1:35 of the second quarter with the second coming on the man-up to pull DeSales within a four-goal margin at halftime.

The two sides played a scoreless third quarter before Wink netted his 38^th goal of the season and fourth of the day 52 seconds into the fourth quarter off an assist from Luna to put Wilkes ahead 8-3. After a Bulldogs goal, Lorenzo scored for the 31^st time of his freshman season to keep Wilkes ahead comfortably at 9-4 with 7:58 left. DeSales added its second man-up goal with 6:55 left and scored again with 3:45 remaining. DeSales continued to put pressure on but two saves from Carter Whittemore (Rochester, NY/West Irondequoit) and a shot off the crossbar and another off the post in the final minutes left Wilkes with the 9-6 victory.

Wink led the attack with five points on four goals and one assist as he finished the regular season second among MAC Freedom players with 61 points. Ruggiero (3 goals), Luna (1 goal, 2 assists), Lorenzo (1 goal, 2 assists), and Kachel (2 assists) all finished with multi-point games.

Jack O'Connell (Linwood, NJ/St. Augustine Prep.) led Wilkes with six ground balls while Ruggiero and JT Weitzel (Hampstead, MD/North Carroll) added five each as the Colonels held a 38-35 advantage in ground balls for the game. Wilkes also held the advantage in shots 32-29 and shots-on-goal 21-15 while committing 21 turnovers compared to 27 for DeSales. Wilkes held the slight lead completing 18-of-23 clears compared to 17-of-23 for DeSales.

Whittemore made nine saves to improve his goalie decision record to 8-6 for the season.

Justin Monaghan led the Bulldogs with three goals and one assist.

Before the game Ruggiero, Kachel, Glenn Weist (Frackville, PA/North Schuykill), and Garrett Armstrong (Hampton, NJ/Kittatinny) were recognized for their contributions to the program during a Senior Day ceremony.