The crowning of a NESCAC Champion and a trip to the NCAA Division III tournament are on the line this weekend for men’s lacrosse at Tufts. If the Cardinals want to have a shot at taking down the four-time defending conference champions, who knocked Wes out 11-6 in the finals last year, they will first have to get past Little Three rival Amherst, a team they lost to 14-10 earlier this season. After a thrilling 10-8 victory over Conn College on April 26th, the Cardinals earned a spot back in the NESCAC Final Four. The Cardinals will be making their 11th semifinal appearance, while the Lord Jeffs are back in the semifinals for the first time since 2005, when the Cardinals defeated them 13-9. Despite losing to the Jeffs in the regular season, the Cardinals enter the game on Saturday, May 3 as the two seed, boasting an 8-2 regular season NESCAC record.
The last time these two teams met, on April 2nd, the Cardinals netted the first four goals of the contest, only to see the Jeffs put away the next six goals and lead at the half 6-4.
“We must keep maintaining our momentum throughout the entire 60 minutes, not just the first 15,” said Captain Aidan Daniell ’14.
The Cardinals responded by going on a 4-1 run to start the second half, and after just five minutes of play, the Cardinals had retaken the lead 8-7. But over the last 20 minutes of play, the Jeffs outscored the Cardinals 7-2, handing them their first NESCAC loss of the season.
“I think we have grown a lot since then in terms of everybody being on the same page on both the offensive and defensive end as well as really trusting the systems in place, Captain Elliot Albert ’14 said. “We will have to do a better job of limiting their key guys defensively this time around.”
In the previous encounter, the Jeffs only faced Justin Schick ’15 in net for about a quarter of play. Since then, Schick has established himself as a force to be reckoned with between the pipes, posting a 5-1 record while giving up 9.30 goals per game and a .528 save percentage.
“Amherst is a difficult team to play against because they always have a specific game strategy tailored to the team they are playing,” Daniell said. “I expect them to have a few wrinkles in their defensive and offensive strategies.”
In order to prepare for this physically demanding weekend, the Cardinals have been going all out in practice. There’s no time to even think about Sunday and a shot at the title; all focus is on prepping for Amherst.
“We have been doing a lot of high-tempo, unsettled drills because as we learned from last year,” Albert said. “If you want to win a NESCAC championship, you need to be in great shape as a team.”
The Cardinals’ semifinal game, hosted by Tufts, is slated to be the second of the two on Saturday. The other will feature Tufts, the one seed, against fourth-seeded Williams. Like the Cardinals, the Jumbos will also be facing a team to which they lost earlier in the regular season. The Ephs defeated the Jumbos 15-8, which was the only time the Jumbos did not post a double-digit score in conference play, and was their fewest goals scored in a game for the entire season. Both the Cardinals and Jumbos are looking to avenge regular season losses to their respective foes and return to the NESCAC finals.
Since day one, getting to this stage has been the goal for the Cardinals, and they feel they are prepared to take that one step further and claim their first NESCAC title since 2009.
“It has been our goal all year to win the NESCAC championship, so it would be extremely rewarding, and, in my opinion, well deserved from all the hard work this team has put in,” Albert said.