St. Mary's City, Md. – Junior captain Nick Tait (Silver Spring, Md./Sandy Spring Friends) and sophomore forward Alessandro Burlew (Mount Airy, Md./Good Counsel) each scored twice in leading the St. Mary's College of Maryland men's soccer team to a dominating 6-2 home- and season-opening win over Penn State Abington Tuesday afternoon.

The Seahawks (1-0) rushed out to a 3-0 advantage in the first 14 minutes of the contest behind two from Burlew and a goal and an assist from Tait. Burlew connected with Tait for the game's first goal at 5:45 before Tait found the back of the net himself at 8:22 as he finished off a pass from sophomore midfielder Sunny Chhatani (Lima, Peru/Indian Creek [Md.]).

Burlew picked up an unassisted goal at 14:22 as he dribbled down the right side of the box before burying a shot into the lower left corner. Abington (0-1) headed into halftime down 3-1 after junior forward Richard Domico (Langhorne, Pa./Neshaminy) netted an unassisted goal at 25:47.

St. Mary's continued its scoring ways in the second half as Tait notched his second of the day off a feed from junior forward Zach Fontenot (Middletown, Md./Middletown) at 56:22, returning a three-goal cushion to the Seahawks. First-year midfielder William Kyei (Philadelphia, Pa./Swenson) made it a two-score game once again with his unassisted tally at 66:13.

Senior forward Davis Holland (Pelletier, N.C./Leonardtown [Md.]) and first-year Aaron Tanenbaum (Bethesda, Md./Walt Whitman) rounded out the scoring for St. Mary's in the final 11 minutes of the game.

The Seahawks posted a 23-6 margin in shots as well as a 10-1 advantage in corner kicks.

In his first career start, sophomore Ben Meyers (Kensington, Md./Walter Johnson) turned away just one shot in helping his team to the season-opening win. First-year Jose Arroyo (Puerto Rico) finished the loss with five saves.

St. Mary's will be back on the pitch this weekend, September 5-6, at the Elmer Lord Memorial Classic hosted by Salisbury University. The Seahawks will first take on Rutgers University-Camden, who received votes in the NSCAA Division III Preseason Rankings, on Saturday at 4:00 p.m. before facing U.S. Merchant Marine Academy the next day at 1:00 p.m.

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