VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – The No. 14 Ithaca College men's lacrosse team was back on the field turf at the Virginia Beach Complex for its second and final contest of spring break when it faced an upstart SUNY Geneseo squad on Thursday afternoon. The Bombers continued to look in impressive early-season form, racing past SUNY Geneseo for 16-5 victory to improve to 5-0 on the young season.
 
Thursday's contest looked to be a tricky one for IC. Although Geneseo entered with just a 1-1 mark on the year, the Knights battled tough against in an 8-5 road loss at Top-10 St. Lawrence in their most recent game over the weekend. The Bombers never let Geneseo get a foothold in the matchup, using a dominant first period to take full control of the game early. Ithaca outscored the Knights 8-0 in the opening 15-minutes of the game. Geneseo would not close the margin any closer than six goals throughout the duration of the contest.
 
It was a balanced attack that keyed the Bombers success. Nine different players tallied at least one goal, while five IC players notched multi-goal efforts in the lopsided win. Funneling the offense through several different sources, Ithaca held a 47-to-29 advantage in shot attempts and a 30-to-19 edge in shots on goal. Further exacerbating IC's dominance was a commanding 19-to-6 advantage in faceoffs, as well as a relentless ride that limited Geneseo to just 13-for-29 in clears.
 
Leading the way for Ithaca offensively was the duo of junior midfielder Conner Crosson and freshman attacker Connor Brumfield. IC's emerging rookie talent paced the Bombers with four points, recording his second consecutive hat trick and third straight multi-goal effort overall, while he also added one assist. Crosson has bounced back-and-forth between being featured as a primary feeder and a primary scorer this season. Today's game was the latter, as he notched his second hat-trick on the season to account for his three points.
 
Three other players recorded three-point efforts on the day out of the midfield. Senior midfielder Stephen Morrell and junior midfielder Brendan King each posted two-goal and one-assist efforts. Junior midfielder Josh Della Puca had that stat line reversed, chipping in one goal and two assists.
 
Rounding out the scoring for IC was a varied group. Sophomore transfer Ryan Ozsvath continued his hot start with a two-goal performance. Senior attacker Jake Cotton posted one goal to move into a tie with 2017-graduate Jack Shumway for seventh on the program's all-time point list with 212 for his career. Senior faceoff man Steven Landspurg and junior midfielder Owen Smith also accounted for one goal apiece. Senior attacker Kaelan Fitzpatrick tallied one assist in his return to game action.
 
Defensively, Ithaca again proved to be relentless in the amount of pressure it has been able to impose on its opponents. The Bombers forced another 14 caused turnovers in the game, while it racked up 55 ground-balls in the game. Primary reasons for these advantages were its ride, which held the Knights under 50-percent in clears for the contest.
 
Graduate-student Winston Wenham led the way for IC with three caused turnovers and six ground-balls. Senior Keith Morrissey and sophomore Aaron McCartney each accounted for two caused turnovers and two ground-balls in the contest. Junior Sean Seaberg also had an active game with one caused turnover and six ground-balls from his long-stick role. Freshman Lucas Cohen also chipped in one caused turnovers, while Della Puca added two forced miscues.
 
Landspurg had another excellent day at the 'X'. He went 18-for-23 in faceoffs, improving his season mark 65.8-percent (73-for-111). Freshman Connor Till went 1-for-1 in his lone attempt, while Seaburg also got one look at draw, failing to secure possession in his lone opportunity.
 
In goal, sophomore Robby Atwood ran his record to 5-0 with a strong effort. He posted eight saves and only four goals against through three quarters. Freshman TJ Brennan took over the IC cage to begin the fourth, making six stops and conceding just one goal in the final 15-minutes.
 
The final 10-minutes of the first quarter proved to be all the difference IC needed on Thursday. All eight of the Bombers' goals came in the final 10:48 of the period, which included posting two separate sequences of scoring twice in under the span of one-minute of game action. Smith and Della Puca scored 28-seconds apart midway through the frame to double IC's lead to 4-0. Brumfield and Crosson followed that up with two goals in a 42-second span to push the advantage to 6-0 with 4:19 left in the quarter. Brumfield and King put the cap on the dominant first, each scoring with under two minutes remaining. King's goal came with just four-ticks remaining.
 
Although Geneseo bounced back with the first two goals of the second frame, IC locked in the defensively to hold the Knights to just one additional goal over the final 9-minutes of the half. King and Ozsvath provided the offense in the frame, King ringing up his second of the game with 6:14 left, while Ozsvath scored his goal with 1:10 left.
 
Geneseo again tallied the first goal of the new quarter in the third when Dillon Rogers bested Atwood with exactly 12-minutes left. However, Ithaca responded with six unanswered goals to put things out of reach. The six tallies all came from different outlets, with Brumfield and Crosson each netting their hat tricks during the stretch.
 
Ithaca returns to action on Wednesday, March 21, when it again hits the road for a non-league battled. The Bombers will face SUNY Oneonta in a 4:00 p.m. start.