WASHINGTON, Pa. -- Junior attack Alex Strain (Pittsburgh, Pa./Upper Saint Clair) scored a career-high seven goals as the Washington & Jefferson College men's lacrosse team used a hot start to upend Thiel 13-9 on Wednesday evening at Alexandre Stadium.
 
The Presidents move to 3-3 on the season and 2-1 in Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) play. Thiel falls to 3-5, 1-3 PAC.
 
W&J raced out to a 8-2 halftime advantage thanks to five first quarter goals and six tallies from Strain alone.
 
W&J scored three times in the span of 34 seconds to turn a 1-1 game into a 4-1 President advantage as Strain scored twice off feeds from Carter Watts (Gilbertsville, Pa./Boyertown) and Nicholas Grosch (Sarasota, Fla./Butler) scored immediately after a faceoff win.
 
The Presidents held Thiel off the scoreboard in the second quarter and Strain added two more tallies to push W&J ahead 7-2 with 12:48 to go in the first half.
 
Freshman defender Aidan Herman (West End, N.C./Pinecrest) scored his first collegiate goal with 8:52 left in the second quarter in the final scoring play of the half.
 
W&J led by as many as eight goals when Strain put the Presidents ahead 11-3 with 4:56 left in the third. Strain was preceded by tallies from Luke Geister (Mechanicsburg, Pa./Cumberland Valley) and Brendan Tribeck (Enola, Pa./Trinity) in the period.
 
Thiel would not go do quietly. The Tomcats scored the next six goals over a nearly 10-minute period between the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth. W&J's lead was diminished to an 11-9 advantage with 4:30 left in regulation.
 
Senior Reilly Oliverio (Carlisle, Pa./Trinity) broke the dry spell for the Presidents with a pair of goals within the span of a minute as he put away feeds from Tribeck and Watts. W&J held the Tomcats off the board the rest of the way to grab the 13-9 win.
 
Strain finished with eight points, matching a career-high set as a freshman against Franciscan. The effort helped Strain surpass the 100-point mark for his career.
 
Watts set a career best with four assists. Tribeck added three points (1G, 2A). Grosch went 14-25 at the faceoff X with 13 ground balls, three caused turnovers, a goal and an assist.
 
Liam Sullivan (Hingham, Mass./Xaverian Brothers) had two assists and Oliverio scored the final two goals of the game.
 
Geister had nine ground balls to go with his long pole goal. James Deiuliis (Pittsburgh, Pa./Upper Saint Clair) had four caused turnovers and six ground balls.  
 
Brody Alloway (Philadelphia, Pa./Archbishop Ryan) made a dozen saves between the pipes and picked up the win.
 
W&J hosts Grove City for Senior Day on Saturday.