WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J.—In a televised matchup on Saturday afternoon No. 10 Villanova (6-1) raced out to a 6-1 lead in the first 20 minutes of the game and eased past Monmouth (4-3) for a 10-6 victory at Kessler Stadium. The win was the fifth straight for the Wildcats, who led 8-1 at halftime and turned in their best defensive performance of the season. Villanova has given up just 7.3 goals per game over its last four contests.
 
The fifth year duo of Matt Campbell (Madison, N.J.) and Patrick Daly (Shrewsbury, Mass.) combined to score seven of the Wildcats goals on the day. Campbell scored a team-high four goals and added one assist, while Daly recorded his sixth hat trick in seven games this season. Seven different tallied at least one point for Villanova, including senior midfielder Mason Reale (Westport, Conn.) who had a game-high three assists.
 
Despite the big first lead for the Wildcats in the first half, Villanova trailed for a four-minute stretch of the opening quarter after the Hawks scored the first goal of the afternoon with 11:21 remaining in that period. Just over four minutes later fifth-year midfielder Austin Fraser (Cortlandt Manor, N.Y.) took a feed from Reale and tied the game at 1-1 at the 7:08 mark of the quarter.
 
Campbell gave the Wildcats the only lead they needed a mere 46 seconds after Fraser's goal. It was another pass from Reale that set up the go-ahead score, and Villanova eventually added three goals in a span of less than nine minutes to stretch the margin to 5-1 with 11:29 left in the second quarter. Daly had two goals in that stretch, including his team-high fourth man-up tally of the year with exactly 12 minutes to go before halftime.
 
Villanova pushed the run to eight unanswered goals on Daly's goal with 5:26 remaining in the half and later a pair of scores just 23 seconds apart. Senior attackman Gavin Derham (Doylestown, Pa.) tallied a man-up goal with 1:25 to play in the quarter and Campbell followed with his second goal moments after for an 8-1 advantage at the intermission. The game marked the third time in the Wildcats last four outings that they had a run of at least eight straight goals.
 
After halftime Monmouth scored two goals in the first three-plus minutes of the second half to get to within 8-3, but the fourth goal from Campbell at the 8:23 mark of the fourth quarter nudged the lead back to 10-4 and made two late scores by the Hawks inconsequential to the final result.
 
Villanova began the day ranked ninth in the country with an average of 10.2 caused turnovers per game and it improved on that average with 11 forced miscues against Monmouth. Senior SSDM Stevie Jones (Reston, Va.) led the defense with three caused turnovers, while senior Sam Parkinson (San Francisco, Calif.) and junior close defenseman Reid Colwell (Westfield, N.J.) had two caused turnovers apiece.
 
Since giving up 32 goals in their first two games of the season the Wildcats have allowed an average of just 8.2 goals per game in the last five outings. Fifth year goalie Will Vitton (Summit, N.J.) reached double digits in saves for the fifth time this season and the third straight game with 11 total stops. He made five of his saves in the second quarter when the game was hanging in the balance and eventually moved up to fourth place in school history with 585 career saves by the end of the day.
 
Vitton leads all active Division I goalies with 2,982:03 career minutes. He notched his 32^nd career win with Saturday's triumph which is two away from tying Villanova's all-time record.
 
The trip to Monmouth was the fifth consecutive road game for the Wildcats, who will return home on Tuesday afternoon to take on Navy at 4 p.m. in the first-ever meeting between the teams.