WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Catholic University men's lacrosse team opened conference play with a win over Lycoming on Saturday afternoon, pushing its streak of victories to five in a row.

Diverse attacking production allowed Catholic to take the win as 11 different Cardinals scored. Steven Dezelic surpassed the 20-goal mark for the season as he fired four past the Warriors to lead the Catholic in scoring on the day and push his season total to 21.

Dezelic got the scoring started early for Catholic, taking a feed from Bjorn Olofson to score past Ben Franco in the Lycoming goal just 59 seconds into the contest.

Lycoming responded four minutes later when Rory Hines fired the Warriors level on a man-up situation. Following the equalizer, Catholic's defense put a stranglehold on Lycoming, allowing the Cardinals to open up a significant halftime lead and ultimately run away with the win.

Peter Donley's squad rode a 7-0 run into halftime as the Cardinals did now concede another goal in the opening stanza. In fact, Catholic's rear guard produced a clean third quarter as part of a streak of over 41 minutes of game time in which Lycoming did not score.

After Dezelic netted his second of the game, John Hadden, Jack Dwyer and Zach Gibson rattled off three goals in 30 seconds to put Catholic firmly in command. Dwyer's goal came as a result of beautiful transition passing between Matt Ford and Victor Rosado to find Dwyer for the tally. Rosado got on the board himself next before Olofson and Hadden scored again before halftime.

Hadden completed his first-career hat trick 24 seconds into the half as Catholic outscored the Warriors 5-0 in the third quarter. Dezelic also completed his hat trick in the period as Fitz McLaughlin and Ian Wick also found the net.

Erik Aulbach grabbed his second of the campaign in the fourth quarter before the Cardinal duo of Liam Hill and Connor McDonough joined Gibson in scoring their first goals of the season. 

The most decisive aspect of the game was Catholic's play at the face-off X as the Warriors had absolutely no answer for junior specialist Ryan Macksoud who went a perfect 14-for-14 at the X with 10 ground balls. Lycoming sent multiple different players to the draw but could not find any success. Connor Baia went 4-for-4 for Catholic while Jack Suchanek went 6-for-7 as Catholic only lost one face-off all day.

The Cardinals were also very good in the clear (22-for-24) and dominated the ground ball battle, picking up 42 more loose balls than their opponents (60-18).

Tyler Merchant made eight saves for Catholic while only allowing three goals before giving way for debutant Luke McNabb. The freshman made his first-career save late in the fourth quarter.

Mason Russo led the defensive efforts with two caused turnovers and four ground balls. Mike Tayloe followed with two caused turnovers of his own and three ground balls while Jack Gibbs stepped into a starting role and played well, grabbing one ground ball. Bailey Wallace and Brendan Scott provided great energy and production off of the bench, combining for two caused and five ground balls.

Catholic will now turn its attention to a formidable test in the shape of Salisbury on Wednesday evening. The Cardinals will look to continue their winning streak and knock off the No. 1 team in the country at 5 p.m. on Carlini Field.