Worcester, Mass. – Nick Johnson (Amherst, Mass.) led a trio of Clark University players who scored three goals or more and the host Cougars stepped on the gas in the second half to pull away from Manhattanville College, 19-9, on Saturday afternoon in non-league men's lacrosse action at the Granger Turf Field.

Johnson finished the afternoon with three goals and a career-high tying seven assists as the Scarlet and White improved to 4-2 for the second consecutive season. The Valiants, meanwhile, slips to 2-3 under first-year head coach Ryder Bohlander.

In addition to Johnson's monster afternoon, Rob Holden (East Longmeadow, Mass.) scored five goals and Peter Christiansen (Seattle, Wash.) added three markers and an assist – highlighting a laundry list of Cougars who scored goals in the victory that snapped a brief two game slide.

Holden's five tallies give him 64 in his career, tying him for the tenth most in school history with Joe Figler (1997-00) and head coach Jeff Cohen (1999-02), while Johnson's seven helpers give him 41 – already seventh most in a career.

After Andrew Myhre (Middlebury, Vt.) put Clark ahead 1-0 off of Johnson's first helper, Manhattanville went ahead with a pair of goals a little more than a minute apart. First, Andrew Murray notched an unassisted score and then Ed Motherway fed Colin Morrissey for the go-ahead goal less than four minutes into the game.

Clark responded scoring three straight goals and four of the final five in the period to take a 5-3 advantage. Ian Daly (Wantagh, N.Y.) found Holden for his first of the day and then Christiansen followed that with his own less than a minute later.

Holden added another before Morrissey snapped the Clark streak, but Christiansen hooked up with Myhre before the first period ended.

The Scarlet and White pushed their lead to 7-3 in the early moments of the second as Johnson scored a pair of unassisted tallies but the Valiants inched closer with Christian Flores finding the back of the net.

Johnson and Holden answered back with Holden's third of the afternoon but Motherway slithered his way inside the Clark defense and scored with four seconds left in the half to close the gap to 8-5 at halftime.

Clark held Manhattanville with a goal in the third period and their offense got goals from Keegan Callahan (Tewksbury, Mass.), Christiansen and Johnson to extend their lead to 11-5.

The teams traded goals over the first four minutes of the fourth with Motherway and Murray finding the back of the net for the Valiants and Christiansen and Alex Turgeon (Holden, Mass.) getting scores for the Cougars.

Ahead 13-7, the Scarlet and White put the game away with four straight scores coming from Darius Jagminas (East Greenwich, R.I.), two from Holden and the final one from Lucas Petricone-Berg (Nyack, N.Y.).

Manhattanville didn't go away as Tyler Bentrewicz found the back of the net and Murray completed the hat trick, but Clark left no doubt with another tally from Jagminas and the one from Will Mandracchia (Melrose, Mass.).

For the Cougars, both Myhre and Jagminas had two scores and Matthew Sullivan (Brunswick, Maine) added a pair of assists.

Drew Riopelle-Tyrell (Northville, Mich.) needed to only make five saves to secure the win in net for the hosts, while Zach Hoffman turned aside 15 shots for the Valiants.

Ryan Marsh (Oyster Bay, N.Y.) had 16 faceoff wins and a game-high 13 groundballs to lead a Cougar defense that forced 21 turnovers.

Clark is next in action on Wednesday when they welcome Oneonta State for a 7:00 p.m. faceoff.