The Varsity Blues men's lacrosse team opened their 2018 season with a 14-8 victory at Wilfrid Laurier University on Friday night (Sept. 7). 

The Blues opened the scoring early with newcomer Nick Pison's first CUFLA goal less than three minutes into the game.  Laurier evened up the score but Toronto took the lead near the end of the first quarter on a marker by AJ Masson. 

U of T poured it on in the second quarter, outscoring the Golden Hawks 5-1 on goals by Jason Barnable (2), Darren Elliott, Davis Bottomley and Masson's second of the game.  Freshman goalie Macon Jeffreys, who started the game strong, had to leave the game with an injury midway through the quarter.  Matt Frola came in and made some excellent stops to prevent Laurier from gaining any momentum.  The score at the end of the half was 7-2 for Toronto. 

The Blues scored five consecutive goals to open the third quarter on two more goals by Pison and Barnable each and one by Elliott.  Laurier finished the quarter strong with three consecutive goals. 

 The Hawks continued their resilience in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Blues 3-2 in the last frame.  Jackson Hickey scored for Toronto and Pison had his fourth goal of the game.   

"I was obviously pleased with the way we came out to start the game," said Varsity Blues head coach Joe Nizich. "The offence had a lot of good opportunities to score, we were fast breaking off of defensive stops and the defense was aggressive. The power play was very good, scoring on 5-of-6 chances.  The coaches did a great job of preparing the team for this game. We knew Nick Pison was going to be good and he didn't disappoint.  Freshman D middie Sam Gaskin played an excellent game.  He often goes unnoticed, but Zach Holmes did his usual great job on defence, forcing a number of turnovers."

Overall, Barnable had five assists to go along with his four goals to end up with a game-high nine points.

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