READING, Pa. – The Albright Lions men's lacrosse team was unable to overcome an early first quarter deficit as they suffered a 17-9 loss to Eastern in MAC Commonwealth play on Saturday afternoon at Shirk Stadium.
 
With the loss, the Lions fall to 1-3 overall and 1-1 in MAC Commonwealth play. Meanwhile, the Eagles improve to 2-1 overall and 1-0 conference play after the first-ever meeting between the two schools.
 
The teams traded chances early in the first quarter, but the game continued to remain scoreless. Eastern finally broke the stalemate with a goal at the 4:12-mark following a Lions failed clear attempt. The Eagles quickly made it 2-0 just 40 seconds later before junior Alex McKendry put the Lions on the board at the 2:34-mark to bring the score to 2-1. Eastern continued his hot stretch with three goals in the span of 1:33 to go up 5-1. McKendry snapped the run with his second goal of the game with just 19 seconds left in the first quarter. The Eagles continued to use a quick-strike offense as they scored two more goals in a span of 1:05 to go up 7-2 at the 12:11-mark of the second quarter. Eastern cashed in on a man-up opportunity to extend its lead to 8-2 before McKendry snapped the run with his third goal of the first half at the 4:25-mark. Following an Eagles counter just 1:10 later, junior Cole Genneken scored his first goal of the game at the 2:30-mark to bring the score to 9-4. Once again the Eagles had an answer to the Lions scoring as they notched one last goal of the first half to take a 10-4 lead into halftime.
 
Eastern took advantage of another man-up opportunity as they extended its lead to 11-4 at the 13:14-mark of the third quarter. Senior Connor Graser cut the Eagles lead down to 11-5 with his first goal of the game after he snatched the ground ball off the ensuing faceoff. Genneken added his second tally of the game off a tough angle shot at the 10:48-mark to give the Lions their first consecutive goal stretch of the game, bringing the deficit down to 11-6. However, the Eagles ended any building Lions momentum with three unanswered goals to go up 14-6 at the 6:11-mark. Junior Jacob Cunningham snapped the run with a goal at the 3:21-mark to make it a 14-7 game. Eastern responded again by scoring the first goal of the fourth quarter in the opening minute to go up 15-7. The Lions sliced into the deficit again with back-to-back goals from Genneken and sophomore Harrison Bodwell to make it 15-9 at the 12:20-mark. Unfortunately for the Lions, that would be their final goals of the game as the Eagles cashed in two more times to seal the win at 17-9.
 
The Eagles held a 45-27 shot advantage for the game and a 27-22 mark in shots on goal. Eastern held a 52-28 edge in ground balls and won 22 of the 30 faceoffs in the contest. Sophomore goalkeeper Liam Ferry suffered the loss for the Lions as he made 10 saves in 56:04 minutes of action. Eagles goalkeeper Ethan Myers earned the win after making 13 saves in the full 60 minutes of action. McKendry led the Lions with four points on three goals and one assist, while Genneken tallied three goals. Bodwell posted two points behind one goal and one assist. Kyle Fanelli and Kyle Mulrane each posted five points to lead the Eagles.
 
Albright will return to action on Wednesday, March 24^th as they will host Lebanon Valley at 4 p.m.