Potsdam, NY - Senior Ryan Cole (Orchard Park, NY) made 16 saves and picked up six groundballs to lead the Clarkson University Men's Lacrosse defensive charge in a 9-3 victory over SUNY Geneseo Saturday afternoon at Hantz Turf Field.

The Golden Knights improved to 4-1 on the season and will travel to Orchard Park, NY on Wednesday for a non-league game against Adrian College. Clarkson will then return home for a game against RIT next Saturday.

Though the Clarkson offense scored its second most goals in five games this season, it was the defensive effort by the Knights that won the day. Cole was dominant, making difficult saves look easy and nearly impossible saves look almost routine. He made seven saves in the first half, and just when Geneseo was hoping to make a comeback, he made nine in the second half.

Clarkson jumped out with a pair of goals in the first quarter thanks to Matt Gold (Pittsford, NY) and Matt McCabe (Syracuse, NY), and extended its lead to 5-0 midway through the second period when Peter Goss (Jamesville, NY) tallied a pair and McCabe added another score. The Blue Knights finally got on the scoreboard with back-to-back goals from Sam Thompson, but the Blue Knights would endure a scoreless drought of 20 minutes, 49 seconds and would get just one more goal for the remainder of the contest.

Gold and McCabe each finished with three scores, with McCabe pulling to within one point of 100 for his career. Goss added a pair of scores and Brendon Shearin (Goffstown, NH) scored the other. Corey Herrington (Camillus, NY) assisted on three scores and Jeff Sciera (DeWitt, NY) also added an assist for the Golden Knights. For Geneseo, Thompson scored twice and Jordan Briceland added a goal as well.

Clarkson held a narrow edge in shots (34-33) and a modest advantage in groundballs (28-21). Cole stopped 16 of the 19 shots on goal for Clarkson, Geneseo split its goalies by half, with Mike Gruebell making seven saves in the opening 30 minutes and Ryan Zaremba making 10 stops in the second half.

Cole is now posting a .680 save percentage and allowing 6.6 goals per game.