It was a wild week for the men’s lacrosse team, as it played in two different NESCAC contests decided by one goal. The “cardiac kids” earned two huge road wins, 10-9 over Little Three rival Amherst in double overtime, and 8-7 over Colby.

Russ Follansbee ’09 had the hot hand for the Cards, scoring the game-winning goal in both contests. The victory over Amherst earned the Cards this year’s Little Three title.

On Wednesday, the team made an afternoon trip to Amherst to square off against the Lord Jeffs who were 2-2 in conference play and 4-5 overall. Despite being underdogs, a fired up Jeffs squad gave the Cards all they could handle.

Amherst senior Derek Cherney who is the NESCAC leader in assists, points, and points per game, started off the scoring with a goal at the 10:09 mark in the first quarter. Cherney wouldn’t score again, but the teams traded goals through the first half. Chris Jasinski ’08, Jon Killeen ’10 and Grayson Connors ’08 each scored goals and Jason Ben-Eliyahu ’09 notched two to bring the game to a 5-5 tie at halftime.

Ben-Eliyahu and Alex Kaufman ’08 each found the net in the third quarter on assists from Follansbee. That was all the scoring the Cards would do for a while, as a six-minute span from the end of the third to the start of the fourth quarter saw Amherst reel off four unanswered goals to take the lead 9-7.

Cardinal goalie Charlie Congleton ’07, who has given up a league-low 5.82 goals per game and leads the NESCAC in save percentage (stopping more than 65 percent of the shots he’s faced), elevated his performance during the final stretch, making a few key stops in a hectic forth quarter.

During the period, Jasinski and Ben-Eliyahu scored their second and fourth goals of the game, respectively, both on assists from Mike Hines ’07. These marks tied the game at 9-9 with five minutes to play. Back-and-forth possessions and tense play from both sides brought regulation time to a close with the scored still tied.

The first overtime saw more back-and-forth action, with Congleton making a highlight-reel, mid-chest save to keep the Cards alive.

Entering the second overtime, Follansbee, who had been working behind the net all day, had yet to register a point. But 26 seconds into the second overtime, he drove hard up the left side and scored to end the game.

The win gave the team its fourth outright Little Three title in five years, as Wesleyan already took down Williams a week ago, 11-7.

“Winning the Little Three is still a big deal to these schools, especially because we shared it last season,” said Mike Polhemus ’08.

With little time to rest and scout, the Cards faced Colby College in Maine last Saturday. Ranking near the bottom of the league in almost every statistical category, and entering the game with a 2-5 overall record (1-3, NESCAC), the Mules appeared an easy match for Wesleyan. But no NESCAC team can be taken lightly and, like Amherst, Colby did not make victory easy for the Cards.

In the first half, the Cards cruised. Connors scored twice, Ben-Eliyahu recorded a goal and an assist, Killeen put one home on an extra-man play, and Dan Latzman ’09 had a cannon of a shot into the upper right corner of the goal, giving Wesleyan a 5-1 lead in the first quarter.

The Cards went into an offensive funk in the second and third quarters, and watched as Colby scored six goals, with Follansbee providing the only rebuttle, unassisted from behind the net.

“We are still struggling at times to put teams away,” said Strittmatter. “We build up big leads, which is good, but we give them away too easily, especially in the third quarter.”

Colby led 7-6 with 10:19 to play in the game when Hines scored the equalizer on a fantastic dodge down the left side. Seven minutes later, Follansbee tucked away the go-ahead goal and the Cards escaped Maine with a narrow win.

Though the Cards are now 11-1, these close contests have been cause for worry. This Wednesday, the team hosts upstart Trinity, which is riding high on after upsetting Middlebury last week.

The Cards will then travel to Vermont this weekend to face their familiar foe, Middlebury. The Panthers will certainly be looking for revenge, as Raba and the boys took down Middlebury for the first time since the 1970s last year.