ST. LOUIS – The Missouri Baptist University men's lacrosse team finished its regular season with a bang Saturday afternoon shutting out Lindenwood University-Belleville on Senior Day, 21-0. It was only fitting that the senior class exploded for 12 goals Saturday afternoon and produced an identical score to last year's Senior Day victory at Spartan Field.
 
From start to finish, the Spartans monopolized the time of possession and rarely did the Lynx advance the ball past midfield. In fact, it was a rather quiet day for the Spartan defense as Lindenwood-Belleville got off just four shots compared to MBU's season-high 62. Goalie Hunter Filla recorded his first-ever shutout win and was credited with just one save on the day.
 
Offensively, the Spartans scored with ease and wasted little time doing so. Senior Josh Zion scored just 27 seconds into the contest to start the fireworks. Five minutes into the game and Missouri Baptist already had five different scorers – Zion, Alex Todd, Andy Coulter, Stephen Vellia and Sean Hess.
 
With the momentum clearly in MBU's favor, the next goal came from an unlikely contributor. Following a ground ball off a LU-B turnover, sophomore defender Fisher Nuss had his time to shine and scored his first career goal at the 9:34 mark. The Spartans continued to torment the visitors from Belleville, Ill., hanging six more goals on the Lynx before the end of the quarter. Senior attackman Sean Hess was unstoppable in the first quarter with four goals.
 
Following a 12-goal first period, the pace of scoring did slow down for Missouri Baptist. The Spartans increased their lead to 16-0 before the break with four more repeat scorers.
 
Between Josh Zion, Sean Hess and Andy Coulter, the senior trio amassed 12 goals and 20 total points. Hess led the way with a career-high six goals on nine shots, while Coulter matched Hess' point total (7) with two goals and a career-best five assists. Zion kept the team lead in goals finishing with four on the day to go along with a pair of assists in the fourth quarter.
 
Others with multi-goal performances included Alex Todd (2), Jaxon Haas (2) and Ian Olenski (2).
 
Missouri Baptist was also effective on faceoffs going 19-of-24 (0.791). Stephen Collins was 9-for-11, while Andrew Spillars went 10-for-13.
 
In addition to his first career goal, sophomore Fisher Nuss led the team in caused turnovers with 3.
 
The Spartans honored five seniors on Saturday including Coulter, Hess, Zion, longstick middie Garett McKelvie, who came close to scoring on nearly every shot attempt (4), and John Wood.