Springfield, Mass. – April 5, 2011 – The Springfield College men’s lacrosse team got within one goal in the fourth quarter but couldn’t complete its comeback as Western New England pulled away with an 8-4 win at Golden Bear Stadium on Tuesday afternoon.

Springfield’s three-game winning streak comes to a close as it now stands at 5-4 on the season. The Golden Bears improved their record to 7-3.

Shawn Runyon led Springfield with a pair of goals, while fellow midfielder Shane Ferguson tallied a goal and an assist. Jarrid Johnson tacked on Springfield’s other goal in the afternoon. Goalie Connor Nash kept the Pride in the game throughout with several terrific stops and finished with 11 saves in the loss.

Mike Santare led the hosts with two goals with two assists and junior goalie Brewster Knowlton was the difference as he recorded 14 saves in the win.

SC took an early 1-0 lead when Runyon scored just 1:54 into the contest with an assist from Matt Hudson. Western New England tied the game following a goal by junior Andrew Mariani with 2:06 left in the period. Freshman Adam Knapton earned the assist.

The Golden Bears dominated the second quarter by scoring three times to take a 4-1 advantage at halftime.

Santare gave the hosts the lead they would never relinquished with an unassisted goal with 8:20 remaining before intermission. Junior Patrick White added another unassisted score at the 3:02 mark before junior Nick Jez scored with just five seconds left on a low shot that skimmed off the turf past Nash.

Springfield re-grouped and quickly got back in the game with two goals in the third period beginning when Johnson tallied an unassisted goal at 11:05. The Pride pulled within 4-3 after Ferguson fired in a shot with 6:06 left in the period with an assist from junior Mike Delia.

This time Western New England came back and outscored SC 4-1 in the final quarter to take the win.

Sophomore Corrigan Harreys found the back of the net following a great feed from White to give the Golden Bears a 5-3 lead with 10:02 remaining in the game.

The Pride made it a one-goal game for the third time just 48 seconds later on a goal by Runyon with an assist from Ferguson.

Springfield won the ensuing face-off and longstick midfielder Tyler O’Keefe scooped up the ground ball and raced towards the goal before firing a shot into the back of the cage which would have evened the game. However, before O’Keefe’s shot hit the twine, Springfield was awarded a timeout, thus wiping out the game-tying strike.

Western New England scored three times in the final 6:52 to put the game away. Knapton increased the lead to 6-4 with an assist from Santare, and then Santare rifled home his second goal at the 3:33 mark. Harreys added the final goal with another assist from Santare 36 seconds later.

Knowlton played a key role in the victory recording six of his saves in the second period to keep the visitors off the board. He also turned away four shots in the final quarter.

Joe Martin took 9-of-16 face-offs while Knapton and sophomore defender Brian Leistikow each picked-up four ground balls.

Mark Eaton and Ross Marchegiani also had four ground balls apiece for the visiting Pride.

The statistics were close with Western New England holding a slim 36-31 advantage in shots and Springfield a narrow 27-25 margin in ground balls.

Springfield will return to Pilgrim Lacrosse League play on Saturday when it hits the road to take on Clark at 1:00 pm.