SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – Dominican men's lacrosse opened their 2025 season with a RMAC match-up against the Golden Eagles of Concordia University Irvine. It's a new era for Penguins lacrosse as Bobby Grove is in his first season at the helm. These two teams went back-and-forth for much of the match, but it was CUI who squeaked out the 12-10 victory.

Freshman Chase Pacenta scored the first points of the game late in the first period when he found an opening in the CUI defense. Pacenta, who didn't look like somebody playing in their first career game, finished the game tied with a team high three goals. Graduate student Connor Barnes gave the Golden Eagles defense fits all day also netted three goals.

Midway through the second the Golden Eagles had jumped out to a 4-1 lead, but that's when the Pengs decided to take the momentum back. Jason Eide called his own number juking out CUI defenders along the way and finished it off with a missile that found the back of the net. At half, the Golden Eagles held a slim 5-3 advantage.

Dominican came out strong for the second half as midway through the third, they scored three straight goals to tie things up at 6. Eide dished out a nice pass to a slashing Pacenta who put one past the goalie's outstretched arms.

Pacenta opened the fourth period with a nice goal then dished one out to fellow teammate Adrian Gilbert on the ensuing offensive possession to cut the CUI deficit down to one. Every time the Golden Eagles thought they had a safe lead, the Pengs would answer. Midway through the period Nicholas Woodard collected a ground ball then went downfield with force pulling out a nifty move on his defender then found Barnes who finished off the offensive possession with a beautiful goal.

CUI would grab two goals back-to-back late in the fourth which ended up being enough to secure the victory.

Dominican will be back on the field tomorrow Feb. 17^th at 12 p.m. as they host Colorado Mesa.