Lexington, KY. – The Transylvania University men's lacrosse team sent out eight seniors with a bang and repeated as regular season champions of the Ohio River Lacrosse Conference on Saturday's Senior Day with a 26-2 thrashing of the Defiance College Yellow Jackets.

Sixteen individual Pioneers scored, including three separate hat tricks by senior attacker Ben Erwin, senior long stick midfielder Ben Rogers, and freshman attacker Collin Ruegg.

A pair of goals were credited to senior attacker Clay Douthat, sophomore midfielder Brendan Thompson, sophomore midfielder Josh Mesmer, and freshman midfielder Joe Shermock.

Also getting in on the scoring mix were senior midfielder Sam Ives, junior attacker Zach Roby, junior midfielder Zack Riggs, senior midfielder Evan Wright, freshman long stick middie Webb VanMeter, freshman attacker Chris Schaefer, freshman midfielder Jackson Fields, freshman attacker Joe Ryan, and junior attacker Clark Watts.

The 24-goal win was a fitting bookend for the eight seniors who began their careers with a 20-1 setback that came four years ago. Senior defender Kaz Blackwell, Douthat, Erwin, Ives, Rogers, Wright, senior midfielder Alex Wesselman, and senior Skyler Moran all broke ground for the men's lacrosse program in its inaugural season of 2012 and have brought it to where it is today.

Transylvania scored in the first 20 seconds of the game and kept the furious pace up throughout the entire match. The Pioneers quickly built a 10-goal lead by the end of the first quarter and nearly duplicated that production in the second quarter with another eight goals before halftime.

Transy tacked on four more scores in the third quarter before Defiance registered their first goal of the contest. Transylvania quickly issued their response with one more goal as the quarter expired.

Transylvania capped their last regular season game of 2016 with three more goals in the final quarter and set a new school single-game scoring records with 26 on the day. The Pioneers also established a new record for margin of victory with the 24-goal difference. The Yellow Jackets managed to gain one more point as time ran out to reach a final score of 26-2.  

Transylvania finishes their 2016 regular season at 8-6 overall with a 6-1 conference record to claim first place in the ORLC. By virtue of sealing first place in the ORLC, the Pioneers will host No. 4 seed Thiel in the ORLC Tournament Semifinal this Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. Transylvania opens up the tournament at Pat Deacon Stadium as they attempt to win their second straight conference tournament championship.

For the latest on Pioneers Lacrosse, follow their official twitter page @Transy_Lax