READING, Pa. - The Shenandoah University men's lacrosse team opened Pennsylvania Athletic Conference play Saturday afternoon with a 13-2 victory at Alvernia College.

The Hornets (4-1, 1-0 PAC) scored the game's first eight goals and held Alvernia (1-4, 0-1) scoreless until the 1:24 mark of the third period.

Senior Justin Ratcliff did most of the damage to the Crusaders - he had a career-best seven goals and one assist to help SU double its 2006 win total.

Junior Ben Page got things going for the visitors with unassisted goals at 10:11 and 7:53 of the first before Teddy Rogers scored what proved to be the game-winner off of a Sean Greenfield assist at 6:36.

Ratcliff scored the first of his seven goals at 5:49 of the second, and assisted Stephen Mayor with 88 seconds remaining in the half to send the Hornets into the lockerroom with a 5-0 lead.

Ratcliff, Page and Mayor each had goals in the third before the Crusaders finally got on the board with a man-up goal with 1:24 remaining. Ratcliff answered that tally with two straight of his own before Alvernia got a Chris Baker goal at 5:54 of the fourth.

Ratcliff answered again, this time starting what became a natural hat trick with an unassisted goal 40 seconds after Baker's tally. His final two goals came at 4:27 and 3:26.

Alvernia actually outshot Shenandoah 32-24 and won 11 of 19 face-offs, but the Hornets won 43 of the game's 79 groundballs to even out the possessions.

Box Score 

SU travels to Neumann next Saturday in another PAC contest.