FRANKLIN, Mass. – April 18, 2023 – The Dean College men's lacrosse team was defeated by Rivier University, 8-5, in a tightly contested Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) matchup Tuesday afternoon at Grant Field.

Dean (7-5, 3-5 GNAC) travels to Anna Maria on Friday at 5 p.m. for the team's last regular season road game. Rivier (11-3, 7-2 GNAC) will host Anna Maria next Tuesday for a regular season finale at 7 p.m.

Junior Alec Speirs (Old Lyme, Conn.) led the Bulldogs with three points on two goals and an assist. Junior Diego Alvarez-Segee (Saugus, Mass.) scored twice, while sophomore Jason Richard (Holden, Mass.) also tallied a goal. Dean junior Tyler Benedetto (Jupiter, Fla.) was 10-of-17 in the faceoff circle and grabbed five ground balls.

Rivier had three players score twice in the game. Sophomore Chris Heitmiller (Nashua, N.H.) had a pair of goals to go with a couple of assists. Senior Jeffrey Potter (North Bennington, Vt.) and junior Connor Eck (Franklin, Mass.) each scored twice.

Dean senior goalie James Rollins (Old Lyme, Conn.) had 10 saves in the loss. Rivier junior keeper Sawyer Gagnon (Gorham, Maine) finished with 13 stops in the win.

The Raiders scored 46 seconds into the contest and held the lead throughout. They went on top 2-0 with Heitmiller's first goal of the game with 5:33 left in the first.

Dean got on the board with a tally by Alvarez-Segee, but Heitmiller scored with nine seconds on the clock to give Rivier a 3-1 lead after the first.

The visitors pushed their lead to 4-1 eight minutes into the second quarter. Speirs answered with a man-up goal to cut the deficit two a pair. The Raiders then scored a man-up goal by Eck, which was set up by Heitmiller, to end the half with a 5-2 advantage.

The Bulldogs came out of the break with something to prove and received goals from Alvarez-Segee and Speirs, in the opening two minutes of the third, to pull Dean within one score at 5-4.

Rivier responded with two goals of their own to retake a three-goal margin at 7-4. Richard found the back of the net for Dean with less than 30 seconds left in the third to make the score 7-5 heading into the final quarter.

Potter scored the lone goal of the fourth to account for the 8-5 final in favor of Rivier.