KALAMAZOO  — Saturday afternoon saw the Carthage College men's lacrosse team secure their ninth win of the season, as the Firebirds topped Kalamazoo 12-5 in non-conference action.

• Final score: Carthage 12 - Kalamazoo 5
• Location: Kalamazoo, Michigan - MacKenzie Field
• Records: Carthage 9-1, Kalamazoo 4-1

 

• Carthage opened the game with two goals from Ben Krok and Andrew Frey, but Kalamazoo responded with two of its own to even the score at 2-2.
• In the second quarter, Jacob Cameron scored three consecutive goals, giving Carthage a 5-2 lead.
• Kalamazoo found the net twice to close the gap, but Carthage entered halftime up 5-4.
• Frey and Alec Gern struck early in the third, with Andrew Johnson adding another to push the lead to 8-4. 
• Gern tallied two more goals, and Krok scored on a shorthanded opportunity to extend Carthage's lead to 11-4 by the end of the third quarter.
• Jake Westland opened the fourth with a goal, while Kalamazoo added one late, but the Firebirds held firm to secure the 12-5 victory.

• Alec Gern led Carthage with three goals.
• Jacob Cameron recorded three goals and one assist.
• Ben Krok and Andrew Frey each netted two goals, with Krok adding three assists.
• Andrew Johnson contributed one goal and four assists.
• Chad Kohlmann won nine faceoffs and collected seven ground balls.
• Jake Williamson recorded six saves, while Luke Bloomer added one save in relief.
• Johnson finished with five points, becoming the third student-athlete in the history of the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) to reach the 300 career milestone. 

"4/0 team on the road, so you take the W and learn from it, but I also think we can be the team that played the third 6/0 and do it for sixty minutes. 

I know I have been hard and short with the guys all year, but we will need to be close to perfect the last month of the season if we are going to have success on the road in a tough CCIW. 

Defense played pretty good in sixes. Let a couple cutters get open early but they made an adjustment that helped pick those guys up. I thought our close and LSMs were great and getting in hands and picking off passes. Also some really good plays on anticipation and recognition by all the D guys.

O had a great third and we need to find a way to bottle that up for the entire game. Just need to get better at finishing our shots. Most of the close games this year, the opposing team has been pushing twenty saves and we are consistently leaving 4 or 5 doorstep looks out there on the field. Need to improve the part of our game.

Another good MIAA team next weekend really hammered us last Spring so another opportunity for us to get better."

• Carthage returns home playing Albion on Saturday, March 29 at 12 p.m.