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LATROBE (May 1) - The top-seeded Saint Vincent men's lacrosse team punched its ticket to the first ever Presidents' Athletic Conference men's lacrosse championship game with a 24-1 win over fourth-seeded Bethany at Chuck Noll Field.

With the win, the Bearcats improve to 6-8 on the year, and advance to host either second seed Washington & Jefferson or third seed Thiel on Saturday afternoon. Those two teams play tomorrow, Thursday, May 2, at 7:30 p.m. in Washington, Pa. Bethany finishes the season 4-12.

Nick Pensyl (from Bryce Pasquariello) opened the scoring just 11 seconds into the game, but Bethany answered 17 seconds later to make it a 1-1 game. From that point, it was all SVC, however.

The Bearcats added four more goals in the first quarter and five goals in the second quarter to take a 10-1 lead at halftime. Pensyl and Jay Lunz both had hat tricks before the break, while Franklin Howard was among the other Bearcats to find the back of the net in the first half.

In the third quarter, Pensyl scored two more times, while SVC scored a total of eight goals in the 15 minutes. The fourth quarter saw starting goalie Adam Gunter score a goal and Kevin Schroeck post his first career hat trick.

SVC exploded for 72 shots in the game and picked up 71 ground balls. The Bearcats dominated face-offs, winning 27 of 29 draws.

Pensyl led all players with nine points (five goals, four assists), while Lunz had four goals and Schroeck (three goals), Pasquariello (one goal, two assists) and Zach Clark (three goals) all had three points.

Gunter earned the win, playing 8:39 in goal and leaving with a 4-1 lead. Logan Hoffman played the rest of the first half and made two saves, while Greg Gonzalez made three saves in the final 30 minutes.