The NJIT men's lacrosse team opened the 2019 campaign with a 15-8 defeat against the No. 13 Lehigh Mountain Hawks Saturday afternoon at the Ulrich Sports Complex. Seniors Ryan Darrow and Cole Robillard led the way for NJIT (0-1) as each senior scored a pair of goals and assisted on another. Colton Johnson was the other Highlander to score two goals, while senior Aaron Forster recorded a goal and an assist and junior Ryan Kaden set up two scores. Sophomore Jackson Boyd rounded out NJIT's scoring and redshirt junior Grant Toller added an assist. "Today was a tough one for us. We competed hard but there were some things we did that we hadn't done in practice or the two scrimmages leading up to this," head coach Travis Johnson said after the game. "We need to continue to grow off of this. Hopefully, we'll figure it out off of film and in practice and be ready for next week." After Lehigh (1-0) scored the game's first four goals, the Highlanders cut the Mountain Hawks' lead in half by the end of the first quarter with a solo goal from Darrow and a Kaden setup for Boyd. The second saw Lehigh score two more goals before NJIT stopped their momentum with a Darrow-to-Robillard connection. Lehigh tacked on two more goals before intermission to set the halftime score at 8-3. Two of the three goals scored to open the second half came from NJIT sticks, as Robillard and Darrow brought the Highlanders' deficit down to 9-5. However, the Mountain Hawks would pull away with a final 5-0 surge that extended into the fourth quarter and put NJIT behind by its largest margin, 14-5. NJIT would end the game by scoring three of the final four goals, with Forster and Johnson setting the final margin. OTHER NOTES NJIT's eight goals matched the most the team has scored in a season opener. The Highlanders also netted eight goals against Lehigh on the road last season (Feb. 3, 2018). NEXT UP NJIT returns to the Lehigh Valley region next week to face Lafayette on Saturday, February 9 at 12 p.m.