LOUISVILLE, Ky.—The Bellarmine lacrosse team returns to Owsley Brown Frazier Stadium on Saturday for a noon ASUN Conference matchup with the Falcons of Air Force.
 
The game will feature quite a few of the league's top scorers.  Bellarmine's Kyle Playsted leads the ASUN in points (51) and assists (28) while teammate Christian Della Rocco is the top goal-scorer on the year with 29.  Air Force's Brandon Dodd, meanwhile, ranks second in the ASUN in both goals scored (28) and points (46).  Benny O'Rourk of Bellarmine also is one of the conference's elite scorers, ranking third in both goals scored (27) and points (36).
 
Air Force (7-4, 4-1 ASUN) is coming off a 12-9 win at Cleveland State where senior attackman Ethan Grandolfo found the back of the net four times to lead the Falcons to the win.  Dodd added a season-high four assists and a pair of goals while Aidan Tolan collected a hat trick.
 
On the season, the trio of Dodd, Grandolfo and Tolan are the leading Falcon goal-scorers with Josh Yago and Wes Peene adding 12 and 11 goals respectively.
 
On the defensive end for Air Force, senior goalie Jason Rose averages 10.36 saves per game and has the third-best save percentage (.507) in the ASUN. He allows an average of 11.22 goals per game, the fourth-best mark in the conference. Junior defender Chris Bardak leads the squad with 1.64 caused turnovers per game, a mark that ranks him second in the ASUN and 23rd in the NCAA. Bardak also leads the Falcons with 36 ground balls.
 
The Bellarmine trio of Playsted, Della Rocco and O'Rourk have combined to score 79 of the Knights' 138 goals on the season, for 57.2 percent.  In addition to those three, Pat Anderson has contributed 14 points while Justin Wescoat, Denton Macdonald, Tayo Oladunmoye, and Jesse Roth have chipped in 12 points apiece this season.
 
Jacob Berggren is the leading Knight in terms of caused turnovers with 13 on the season, and he's also the ground balls leader with 43.  Macdonald is not only one of the top offensive players for Bellarmine, the short stick midfielder also is a leading defender and has 10 CTs and 30 ground balls on the season.
 
Bellarmine (7-3, 2-2 ASUN) is coming off an 18-7 road win at Lindenwood where goalie Dante Batista picked up his first collegiate win.  His numbers are solid with a save percentage of .590 and a goals-against average of 7.84.
 
Over the years, the Knights and Falcons have met 17 times with Air Force dominating the series 14-3, including winning the last nine meetings.
 
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