The Belmont Abbey men's lacrosse team fell to the sixth-ranked Limestone Saints by a 10-5 score this afternoon as the Abbey opened its Conference Carolinas slate at Alumni Field. Limestone improves to 9-1 overall and 3-0 in Conference Carolinas, while the Abbey drops to 2-5 overall and 0-1 in league play.

The Abbey trailed just 7-5 at the half, but was held scoreless in the second half as the Saints scored twice in the third quarter and once in the fourth. Scotty Steele led the Abbey with two goals and an assist. Dan Morrissey, Joey McGinley and Brendan Rogers all had single goals. Morrissey, Steele and Tanner Scharr all had one assist.

The first quarter was a close contest as Steele scored the first goal of the game less than two minutes in, but the Saints scored the next two goals just 1:08 apart to move ahead by one. McGinley deadlocked the game at two off of a feed from Scharr, and the first quarter ended with the two teams trading goals as Limestone held a 4-3 edge after one.

Five goals were scored in the second period as Steele scored the first goal of the period to tie the game at four, but Limestone scored the next three to extend its lead to 7-4. Steele found Rogers in front of the net with five seconds left to close the gap to 7-5 at the half.

Only three goals were scored in the second half, as the Saints scored twice in the third quarter and added another in the fourth to close the scoring.

Brett Lawless made 11 saves in the net and scooped up four ground balls. Limestone goalkeeper Steve Gartelman stopped nine shots.

Desi Gonzalez led Limestone with three goals, while Riley Loewen and Tor Reinholdt finished with two. Shayne Jackson,  Corey Rich and Tyler Baker had one each.