Game Notes

The Fairfield University men's lacrosse team bookmarks this weekend with home games on Friday and Monday.  The Stags host Air Force on Friday at 7 p.m. in the ECAC Lacrosse League opener for each team, before hosting Vermont in a non-conference game on Monday at 3 p.m.

Fans that can't make it to the game can watch the live webstream, with integrated livestats, or just livestats here.

Fairfield is in its sixth season as a member of the ECAC Lacrosse League, and has a perfect 5-0 in league openers in that time.  The Stags defeated Rutgers to start ECAC play in each of its first four seasons, before knocking off Ohio State at home last season.  This is the third consecutive season the Stags have begun ECAC play at home and fourth season all-time.

Fairfield and Air Force are meeting for the seventh time, with the Stags holding a 4-2 series lead.  Fairfield defeated Air Force 4-3 in Colorado Springs last spring, the team's first meeting since 2005, a game Fairfield won 10-9.  The first meeting in the series came in 2001, a 10-7 home win for the Stags.  Fairfield is 3-0 at home against Air Force.

Fairfield and Vermont are meeting for the fourth time with the Stags holding a 2-1 advantage in the series. Fairfield earned a 10-8 victory at home, when the teams last met in 2009.  The Catamounts win came a year earlier, 9-8, in Burlington.  The first-ever meeting came at Fairfield in 2000, with the Stags earning a 19-6 win.

Air Force is 1-3 on the season and is being outscored 40-35 for the year.  Leading the way are Vinny Sandtorv and Erik Smith, both of whom have tallied 10 points.  Sandtorv leads the way with eight goals, while Smith has a team-high five assists.  Brian Wilson has played nearly 230 of the team's 240 minutes in goal, making 35 saves and has a 9.66 GAA entering the game.

Vermont enters Monday's game with a 3-2 record and coming off a 14-6 loss at #2 Virginia.  Drew Philie is the Catamounts leading scorer with nine goals and 13 points.  He is also tied for the team lead in assists with Geoff Worley, both handing out four on the year.  Tom Frasca has won 50.6 percent of the face-offs he has contested this year and has ended up with a team-best 22 ground balls through five games.  Max Gradinger has 18 ground balls and a team-best eight caused turnovers. David Barton has played all 300 minutes in goal and has a .583 save percentage and an 8.00 GAA.

Vermont will be the Stags third New England Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (NEILA) opponent of the season.  The Stags are 1-1 in NEILA competition this year, defeating Quinnipiac 7-5 and falling 6-5 to Bryant.  The Stags are ranked seventh, for the second consecutive week, in the NEILA coaches poll that was announced on March 8.  Vermont is ranked fourth in the current poll, while Bryant remains sixth.

Sam Snow has scored at least one point in each of his 16 career games at Fairfield, which is the 27th longest active streak in the nation through Wednesday (thanks to Cornell SID Julie Greco for that information). He enters today's game as the team's leading scorer, with eight points having touched net four times and handed out four assists.  Snow is 10th in the ECAC at 1.00 assists per game entering play today. Over his 16 game career, Snow has touched net 19 times and has handed out 17 assists.

Fairfield has scored 26 goals  this season with 12 different players touching net at least once. Only nine players have scored more than once this season, led by the five tallies of Doug Kuring.  Against Quinnipiac seven different players accounted for each of the Stags goals.  

Charlie Cipriano had his third 11 save game of the season against Villanova and has made at least eight saves in all four games this season.  His .631 save percentage is tops in the ECAC Lacrosse League entering the weekend, while his 6.03 GAA is second.  He had three ground balls against Nova, to bring his season total to seven, while also causing his first two caused turnovers of the season.  Cipriano is ninth in the nation in GAA and 11th in save percentage.