Jeremy Vautour scored four goals, Charlie Duprey added three goals and the defense held Springfield scoreless for the final 21:47 of the game as the St. Lawrence University Men's Lacrosse team advanced to the next round of the NCAA Division III Tournament with a 12-9 victory over Springfield College Saturday afternoon on North Country Field at Hall-Leet Stadium in Canton.

St. Lawrence tied the school record for wins in a season with the 17th win of the season and Head Coach Mike Mahoney picked up his 200th career win with the victory over the Pride. The only other St. Lawrence teams to win 17 games in a season was the 1976 and the 1979 teams.

"I thought our guys did an unbelievable job defensively in the second half," said Mahoney. "We made a couple adjustments at halftime and we were able to keep them outside the crease area forcing them to shoot from outside."

Similar to the first round victory over New England College, the Saints started strong scoring within the first minute of the contest as Duprey send a shot through the legs of the Springfield (12-8) goalie just 50 seconds into the game.

Jamie Kuppel scored a pair of goals sandwiched around the first Springfield goal as the Saints took a 3-1 lead at the 7:26 mark of the opening quarter. After a face-off win and quick rush up the field, Springfield cut the lead to 3-2 with a goal just 15 seconds later for a 3-2 Saints lead.

Vautour scored his first at the 4:09 mark and Conor Healey added a goal at 2:32 with a man-up effort to push the St. Lawrence lead to 5-2.

Springfield scored just inside the 2:00 mark to make it 5-3 but with time running out in the quarter, the Saints forced a turnover near midfield and Duprey fired a shot from beyond the midfield line that was deflected near the goal and scored as time expired in the first quarter.

"We had a player 6-8 years ago scored from a similar distance but never in a situation like we had today," said Mahoney. "It was a huge shot in the arm for us at the end of the quarter and it game us a three-goal lead. It was a great play by Charlie (Duprey) and we got some traffic in front and it worked out well."

The Pride scored the first three goals in the second quarter to tie the game at 6-6 but St. Lawrence scored three of the final four goals of the first half to take a 9-7 lead into the break.

Jon Fairbanks, Vautour and Healey all scored for the Saints in the final 3:42 of the first half.

Springfield came back again in the third quarter scoring the first two goals of the period to tie the score again at 9-9 with 8:13 left to play in the period.

Vautour scored the next two goals of the game with his 56th and 57th goals of the season coming at 5:26 and 1:52 in the third quarter giving the Saints the lead for good.

Those two goals for Vautour moved him past Fran Shields who scored 55 goals in 1979 into second place on the school record list for goals in a season. Only Scott Fetteroff who had 59 goals also in 1979 is ahead of the senior.

Duprey scored the only goal of the fourth quarter as the St. Lawrence defense dominated the final 20 minutes of the game.

Vautour's four goals and Duprey's three goals and one assists for four points led the team while Healey finished with two goals and an assist for three points. Kuppel, Andrew Jarrett (two assists) and Alec Dietsch (two assists) had two points each for the Saints.

Defensively, Jack Roberts had five ground balls and three caused turnovers, Malcolm Lynch caused four turnovers and Dietsch picked up seven ground balls and forced three turnovers. Goalie Ryan Fisher had five saves and earned his 17th win of the season.