Bloom's Career-High 6 Goal Leads Way for Wooster in 17-8 Win Over Kean

The second half continued to be The College of Wooster men's lacrosse team's calling card, as a 7-0 run to start the final 30 minutes of action bumped the Fighting Scot's lead from two at halftime to nine during an eventual 17-8 win over Kean University on Wednesday afternoon at Colorado College's Washburn Field in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Senior Alexander Bloom jolted the second-half fireworks with back-to-back goals that extended Wooster's (4-2) lead out to four at 11-7 with just over nine minutes left in the third period. Junior Joe Altieri found his swagger on the Scots' next offensive score, and his surge carried over to the tune of three second-half assists, two of which setup finishes for first-year Shaun Peirce.

In all, four Scots contributed to the 7-0 spurt, including sophomore Luke Liljenstolpe, who pumped one in to the back of the net for the first time of the season at the 5:11 mark of the third period, that at the time made it a six-point Wooster lead.

The first period featured an offensive frenzy with the two teams combining for nine goals on 22 shot attempts. Sophomore Wesley Wagner and the Scots' defense clamped down from there as Kean (3-1) mustered four goals on 24 shot attempts the rest of the way, while turning it over 19 times, 16 of which came in the second half. In fact, Wagner logged eight of his game-high 11 saves over the final three stanzas.

While the offensive frenzy dominated the storyline of the first period, the Scots never trailed in the contest thanks to back-to-back strikes from Bloom and senior Ian Brim during the game's opening two minutes.

Bloom led the charge in the scoring column with a career-high six goals, one better than the five he scored during last year's 12-9 win over Otterbein University. Brim, senior Sam Kuhn, and Peirce backed the senior up with two goals each.

Rookie Connor Mangan continued to fill the stat sheet with groundballs, and he finished the afternoon with eight.

Other stats to note include 21 faceoff wins for the Scots with nine coming from sophomore Nick Gargaro and five from senior - and Colorado native - Noah Parker.

Jake Frankovits paced Kean with three goals.

Noteworthy, Wooster's now outscored the opposition 33-9 in the second half during its four wins, and that includes a remarkable 21-3 advantage in the third period.

Wooster will swing by Crawfordsville, Ind. on its way back from Colorado to take on Wabash College (1-4, 0-1 North Coast Athletic Conference) at 1 p.m. on Saturday. The game marks the Scots' league opener.