A pair of personnel changes paid big dividends for the Colorado College men's lacrosse team on Saturday afternoon.

Freshman attackman Elliot Nelson scored three goals and set up another, and senior midfielder Parker Woo won 17 of 28 face-offs while leading the Tigers to a 17-11 victory over Rhodes College at Washburn Field.

"Our coaches and face-off group as a whole just thought that the matchup today would be more beneficial with my style vs. the opponents' team style," Woo said. "I was just trying to spark a little something after halftime and we had great teamwork today."

Coming out of the halftime break, Woo needed just six seconds to win the face-off, pick up the ground ball and whistle a shot high under the crossbar to give CC an 8-3 lead.

However, much like the first quarter when Colorado College scored the first four goals of the game, including a pair on the opening minute, the Lynx answered with three in a row to close the gap to 8-6.

Consecutive tallies by sophomore attackman John Sutro, senior midfielder Aaron Maslow and junior midfielder Ben Sudduth restored the Tigers' five-goal cushion, and after Tyler Milwit scored for Rhodes with 50 seconds remaining in the third quarter, Maslow struck again with just eight ticks left on the clock.

Karl Van Blargan scored three of his five goals during the fourth quarter, the last of which cut CC's lead to 15-11 with 5:41 to play, but that was as close as the Lynx would get.

Junior midfielder Jack O'Donnell's man-up tally gave Colorado College a five-goal lead and Nelson closed out the scoring with 14 seconds remaining.

Like Nelson, Sutro finished with three scoring strikes and an assist.

Maslow also scored three times for CC, while junior attackman Coby Petau notched a pair.

Six other Tigers found the net once to give Colorado College 10 different goal scorers.

At the other end of the field, the Tiger defense shut down two of Rhodes' three leading scorers. Matt and David Perez, who entered the game with a combined 26 goals and 13 assists, mustered only a pair of assists against the Tigers.

However, Van Blargan displayed a variety of shots and finished with game highs of five goals and six shots for the Lynx.     

Colorado College won 21 of 32 draws and built a 32-16 advantage in ground balls.

Woo led CC with eight ground balls, while sophomore long-stick midfielder Billy Hutchison and freshman defender John Lawrence picked up three apiece.

The extra possessions produced a 54-34 margin in total shots for the Tigers.

Andrew Harwood finished with nine saves for Colorado College and improved to 3-0 in goal.

Senior midfielder Tyler Borko and Lawrence caused two turnovers for the Tigers.

"I love the way the freshman are playing," head coach Sean Woods said. "They really are a great group. Elliot has become a spark for us in the offensive half.

"Brennan (Troy) had such a good week of practice that we had to get him on the field. He made some amazing groundball plays that turned into some great goals today. Then we have a guy in JT (John Lawrence) who has been playing since he got here."

Cameron Link stopped 12 shots for Rhodes during his 52 minutes in goal.

Brendan Roberts recorded one save in six minutes of action, while Stephen Miller played the final 92 seconds for the Lynx.

CC plays host to Salve Regina University on Wednesday, March 13, at 1 p.m.