WASHINGTON D.C. – The Wilkes men's lacrosse team finished their first campaign of Landmark Conference play on the road on Saturday afternoon, falling to Catholic University at Carlini Field 24-6.

The Colonels finish the season with a 4-12 overall record and a 1-8 record in Landmark play, while the Cardinals end the regular season at 9-8 on the year and 5-4 in conference play.

Catholic opened the scoring in the first quarter with a 4-0 run before Tim Hartka (Phoenix, MD/Calvert Hall) put Wilkes on the board with a man-up opportunity for his 20^th goal of the season. Jackson Casper (Bel Air, MD/Bel Air) assisted on the goal that made it a 4-1 game.

Wilkes wouldn't score again until the second quarter, with the Cardinals putting up six unanswered goals before Austin Sosnovik (New Tripoli, PA/Northwestern Lehigh) found the back of the net again for the Colonels. He buried the pass from Colby Opromolla (Patterson, NY/Carmel) to make it a 10-2 game with 7:25 remaining in the first half. Opromolla then scored with 19 seconds left in the half with a man-up opportunity to go into halftime down 12-3.

Opromolla scored again in the third quarter, stopping a run of seven unanswered Cardinal goals to make it 19-4. The junior completed his hat trick in the fourth quarter, scoring again with three minutes remaining to make it 24-5, with Hartka scoring his second of the game less than a minute later to bring another goal back for Wilkes, but the game would end before either team found the back of the net again.

Opromolla's hat trick led the Colonels, putting together a four-point game. Matthew Warns (Cutchogue, NY/Mattituck) led the team with five ground balls and two caused turnovers, tying Jaylen Dixon (Livingston, NJ/Livingston) in the latter category. In net, Joseph Marino (Swedesboro, NJ/Kingsway Regional) made 17 saves.

Steven Dezelic led Catholic with five goals and six points, while Ryan Macksoud led the team in ground balls with 11. Tyler Merchant made seven saves in net and earned the win for the Cardinals.