PHILADELPHIA -- Junior Marty Kupprion (Episcopal/Wallingford, PA - at right), making his first career start, scored a career-high four goals to lead the University of Delaware to a 9-5 men’s lacrosse victory over host Saint Joseph’s in the Blue Hens’ season opener Saturday morning at Finnesey Field.

The game was the nation’s first official NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse game of the 2006 season, marking the third straight year these two teams have met in the nation’s first major college lacrosse game.

The Blue Hens (1-0), coming off an 11-6 record in 2005 when Delaware captured the Colonial Athletic Association regular season title and advanced to the NCAA Tournament, won their season opener for the fourth straight year, all at the hands of the Hawks (0-1). Saint Joseph’s was coming off a 3-11 record in 2005.

Kupprion, who entered the season with just five career goals, including two in last year’s season-opening win over Saint Joseph’s, was perfect on the day, converting goals on all four shots on goal as the Blue Hens jumped out to a 5-1 lead after the first quarter and held off the Hawks the rest of the way.

Dan Hechtkopf (Cape Henry/Virginia Beach, VA) added a goal and dished out three assists while Cam Howard added a goal and an assist and Dan Deckelbaum, Kyle Rotelli, and Beau Davis each scored a goal. All-American Alex Smith, who led the nation in faceoff percentage a year ago with a 71.2 percent success rate, picked up where he left off as he won 15 of 18 faceoffs.

Blue Hen junior goalkeeper Tommy Scherr (Mt. St. Joseph's/Owings Mills, MD), making his first collegiate appearance, was outstanding in the nets with 10 saves. The Hens played without All-American midfielder Jordan Hall, the 2005 CAA Player of the Year, who was nursing a hamstring injury.

Saint Joseph’s, which outshot the Hens 31-22, got two goals from Andrew Four while Alex Lopes and Mike O’Neill each scored a goal and dished out an assist.

Deckelbaum and Kupprion each scored in the first three minutes of the game to give the Hens a 2-0 lead. After SJU got on the board on a goal by Four with 12:09 left in the first stanza, the Blue Hens took control by scoring the last three goals of the first quarter and first two of the second as part a 5-0 run to take a 7-1 lead. Kupprion led the run with two goals as he notched the first-half hat trick.

Kupprion scored his fourth goal of the game with 27 seconds left in the third quarter to push the UD lead to 8-2 before Saint Joseph’s scored three goals in the final quarter to make it close. Keegan Wilkinson’s goal for the Hawks with 1:51 closed the scoring and cut the Delaware lead to 9-5.

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