The men’s lacrosse team had a whirlwind of a weekend with games on Saturday and Sunday to settle the NESCAC Championship. Feeding off of yet another dramatic victory in their first round matchup against Bowdoin, the eager Cardinals sprang into Saturday’s contest against Middlebury with heaps of momentum. The Cardinals traveled up to Middlebury where the Panthers hosted the weekend’s championship festivities. The host Panthers came into the game hot off a 19-8 rampage against eighth-seeded Amherst College. The Panthers also collected a tightly contested victory over the Cardinals during the regular season on their home field, 7-6.
In net, the Cardinals started goalie JD Dieterich ’13, who was instrumental in locking down last weekend’s victory over Bowdoin with six saves in 36 minutes of play. Dieterich withstood a swift and relentless Middlebury attack that got off to a hot start with four goals in the opening quarter of play. The Cardinals struggled to keep up with the second highest scoring squad in the conference. Through the first half of play, the only offense generated by the Cardinals came from a pair of unassisted goals from lead scorer, Graham Macnab ’14, and from Aidan Daniell ’14. Meanwhile, the Panthers benefited from a three-goal barrage late in the second to ease themselves into a comfortable 7-3 differential going into the half. But in typical Cardinal fashion, the Redbirds waited until their opponents became complacent to pick apart their play.
The second half took a completely different narrative, as the Cardinals were able to tally four straight unanswered goals to even the match at seven apiece with 12 minutes to play. The Cardinals and Panthers traded off goals within four minutes of each other to bring the contest to a heated deadlock with less than a minute left. However, even though overtime seemed inevitable as the time was running out, one last gutsy drive resulted in a game-winning rip by Macnab. The goal was Macnab’s fourth on the game, and more importantly it gave the Birds their first lead in the contest. Following the goal, Wesleyan was able to fend off a final Middlebury attack and secure the upset victory.
The Cardinals only had a short amount of time to celebrate the day’s events. On Sunday, Wesleyan had its final matchup in the NESCAC championship game against a tough Tufts team looking to secure a fourth straight conference title. The Cards held the regular season advantage over the Jumbos after they secured a win at Jackson Field on April 20. As the Cardinals had learned in their previous tournament tuneups, regular season outcomes have little bearing on postseason play.
Wesleyan drew first blood in Sunday’s contest when Mike Giambanco ’14 opened the account for the Birds. However, Tufts’ offense overloaded Wesleyan as they countered with four goals in the period, two of which came with less than 30 seconds in the quarter. Even with Dieterich between the pipes, the Cardinals could not prevent a flood of Jumbo goals in the second quarter as Tufts took a 6-3 lead into the half.
Although it seemed that everything was falling into place for a repeat of the previous day’s game, the Cardinals simply did not have enough in the tank to mount a comeback and surge to a championship victory. In the final two quarters of play, Wesleyan could not make up the deficit, despite goals from Daniell and Quentin DellaFera ’15. Three straight goals from the Jumbos were the daggers that effectively ended the Cardinals’ hopes of championship glory, closing out victory for Tufts 11-6.
As a result of losing, the Cardinals miss out on an automatic bid for an NCAA championship berth. Sadly, neither the Cardinals nor any other NESCAC team received an at-large bid, thus ending the Cardinals meteoric rise in 2013. Despite the loss, the Cardinals have set a solid foundation for themselves going forward. And with a bevy of returning playmakers and game changers, 2014 could be the year the Birds take it a step further.