ROCHESTER, NY – The No. 2 RIT (4-0, 1-0 Liberty League) men's lacrosse season opened Liberty League play with a 14-9 win over No. 15 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1-2, 0-1 Liberty League) at the Carrier Dome on Friday afternoon. The Tigers improve to 27-6 all-time versus the Engineers and have won 39 straight Liberty League regular season and tournament games.

Shots were 51-39 in favor of RIT. The Tigers won the ground ball battle 36-26, and went 16-of-27 on face-offs. The Tigers went 0-for-2 with the man advantage and cleared the ball 19-of-20 times. RIT's defense forced RPI into 20 turnovers.

Drew Tosaya (Kenmore, WA/Inglemoor) led a balanced RIT scoring attack, tallying three goals. Kyle Killen (Peterborough, ON/Crestwood Secondary High School), Cam Isaac (Webster, NY/Webster Thomas) and Ben Tackett (Butler, PA/The Kiski School) each scored a pair of goals. Beau Riley (Homer, NY/Homer) and Braden Wallace (Oakville, Ontario/Abbey Park) each had a goal and an assist, while Ryan Lee (Sharon, Ontario/The Hill Academy) dished out a pair of assists.

Nick Nesbitt (Burlington, Ontario/Salisbuury School) got the win in net for the Tigers, making 14 saves. Jimmy Spillane (River Vale, NJ/Pascack Valley) won nine face-offs, while Nate Farrell (Whitesboro, NY/Whitesboro) won seven. JD Hall (Centennial, CO/Arapahoe) caused three turnovers, while Tackett scooped up six ground balls.

JT Kelly led Rensselaer with four goals. CJ Kigar tallied three goals and added an assist, while David Gibbs took the loss in net, despite making a season-high 21 saves.

RIT scored the first two goals of the game, taking a 2-0 lead on Tackett's goal off a feed from Riley at the 13:51 mark. After the two teams traded goals, Rensselaer answered back scoring three straight times, taking a 4-3 lead on a goal by Lukas with 2:12 to play. Isaac tied the game with his goal late in the quarter.

Kigar gave the Engineers a 6-5 lead on his man-up goal at the 9:04 mark of the second quarter. The Tigers closed out the half scoring four straight goals to lead 9-6 at the half. Kyle Killen (Peterborough, ON/Crestwood Secondary High School) scored off a feed from Vakiener to tie the score, while Tackett, Isaac and Tosaya each scored in the run.

Shots were 26-24 in favor of the Tigers in the first half. The Tigers won 11-of-17 face-offs and had 19 ground balls. Nesbitt made five saves in the first half.

RIT tallied two third quarter goals, in a low-scoring quarter. Levick gave RIT a 10-7 lead on his unassisted goal at 8:09 of the third. Riley scored off an assist from Eli Salama (Coquitlam, British Columbia/Dr. Charles Best) with 3:13 to play to make it 11-7 Tigers.

Tosaya scored twice and Killen added an insurance goal in the fourth quarter to help put the game away for RIT. After Tosaya made it 12-7, Kelly and Kigar tallied consecutive goals to cut RIT's lead to 12-9 with a little under seven minutes to play. Nesbitt and the RIT defense would stay strong, with Tosaya and Killen adding big goals late to put the game away.

RIT returns to action on Friday, March 17 when the Tigers face No. 9 Amherst College at 5:30 p.m. at the Mustang Classic hosted by Stevenson University.