The Belmont Abbey men's lacrosse team broke a 5-5 tie by scoring four of the final five goals of the game to earn a 10-6 win over the visiting Rollins College Tars this afternoon at Alumni Field in the home opener. The Abbey moves to 3-4, while Rollins drops to 3-7.

Belmont Abbey outshot Rollins 31-29 as it opened the game on a 4-0 burst that spanned the entire first quarter. Nick Boylan and Matt Spivey opened the scoring with goals just 19 seconds apart, while Dave DiLuigi added another. Brian Watson closed the scoring with a goal at the two second mark to push the Abbey lead to 4-0 after one.

Rollins cut the Abbey lead in half with a pair of goals by Charlie Shelly that represented all of the goals in the second period.

In the third period, Tanner Scharr moved the lead to 5-2 off of a feed from Boylan at the 11:21 mark, but Rollins responded with a stream of goals, three unanswered, to deadlock the game at five with 1:27 left. With just 35 ticks left, Scharr scored to give the Crusaders a lead they would never lose.

The fourth quarter was all Belmont Abbey, outscoring Rollins 4-1 in the period as Watson gave the Crusaders some breathing room with a goal at the 13:27 mark, followed by a Charlie Kemp tally off of a feed from DiLuigi to move the advantage to 8-5. Just over four minutes later, Miles Elliott made it 9-5 with an unassisted score.

Eric Schmitt scored a man-up goal for the Tars with 1:46 left, but Kemp had an answer 48 seconds later, off of a pass from Damon DeLuca, to close the scoring.

Belmont Abbey was just one of six in extra man opportunites to just two for five for Rollins. Rollins won the face off advantage 11-8 and the ground ball battle 35-32.

Watson, Tristan Keas and Matt Spivey all led the Abbey with four ground balls apiece. Connor Doyle posted a pair of caused turnovers. Tony Kikola made seven saves in the first half before giving way to Merrick Reiland, who made five saves.