Tufts Grabs Men's Lacrosse Crown in Double Overtime

Courtesy Tufts Sports Information

Box Score

MEDFORD, Mass. - Sophomore Beau Wood (Sherwood Forest, Md.) took a feed from senior Geordie Schafer (Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.) and rifled home the game-winning goal at 1:50 of the second overtime as the Tufts men's lacrosse team won its third consecutive NESCAC title, 9-8, against Bowdoin on Sunday at Bello Field.

In an outstanding game, Bowdoin scored twice in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter to tie the score at 8-8. Wood's goal gave Tufts (16-2) its second straight overtime victory in the conference final, including last year's 13-12 win over Middlebury. The Jumbos earn NESCAC's automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament, their fourth straight NCAA appearance.

Senior co-captain Sean Kirwan (Boonton Township, N.J.) led Tufts on Sunday with four goals. The Jumbos have now won 11 in a row overall and 32 straight at Bello.

The Polar Bears (13-5), who were playing in their third conference final, were led by three goals from senior Keegan Mehlhorn (North Berwick, Maine). Bowdoin has a good shot at earning an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament.

Tufts' Kirwan and Bowdoin's Mehlhorn both scored twice in the first period, which ended in a 3-3 tie. The Jumbos led 2-0, Bowdoin tallied three straight and then Tufts tied it.

Polar Bear sophomore Franklin Reis (Hampton Falls, N.H.) scored the lone goal of the second quarter and Bowdoin went into halftime with a 4-3 lead. Senior goalie Chris Williamson (Winnetka, Ill.) had eight saves at the break for the visitors.

In the first five minutes of the second half, Jumbo freshman Cole Bailey (Millersville, Md.) scored a goal and assisted on another as the hosts took a 5-4 lead. However, Bowdoin senior Chris Anderson (Golden, Colo.) netted back-to-back goals 43 seconds apart to push the Polar Bears back in front 6-5 with 7:58 remaining in the third.

The Jumbos finished the quarter with a 3-0 run over the final seven minutes, including two goals by Kirwan and two assists by Wood. They led 8-6 heading into the fourth quarter.

The Polar Bears would out-shoot Tufts 13-7 in the fourth, but the Jumbo defense was able to hold them off until Mehlhorn scored at 3:11 to make it 8-7. Tufts won the face-off, but Bowdoin's Greg Pierce (Beverly, Mass.) caused a turnover which led to sophomore Will Wise's (Cohasset, Mass.) goal with 1:19 remaining to tie it 8-8. Polar Bear senior Brendan Hughes (Marblehead, Mass.) won the ensuing face-off, but two Bowdoni shots missed wide.

Jumbo senior Nick Rhoads (McLean, Va.) won the face-off clean to open overtime. The Jumbos took two shots and Bowdoin had one, but none were on net and the game went to a second OT.

Bowdoin won the second-overtime face-off on a groundball by senior Lawton Salley (Washington, D.C.). However, after a time-out, the Polar Bears turned the ball over. A Kirwan shot was saved by Williamson, but Bowdoin stepped out of bounds during the clear attempt under heavy Tufts pressure. Soon, Wood was unleashing the shot to win it for the Jumbos.

Wood and Bailey both finished with a goal and two assists for Tufts. Junior defenseman Matt Callahan (Acton, Mass.) caused two turnovers and picked up four groundballs. Sophomore defender Dan Alles (Rockville Centre, N.Y.) also had four groundballs. Rhoads won 13 of 22 face-offs, and sophomore goalie Patton Watkins (Chattanooga, Tenn.) finished with seven saves (five in the second half).

Reis added an assist to finish with three points for Bowdon. Senior Matthew Egan (Newton, Mass.) led the Polar Bears with a game-high five groundballs. Williamson totaled 13 saves.

The stats reflected the tightly contested game, as Tufts held a 39-36 advantage in shots, but Bowdoin led 32-29 on groundballs. The Jumbos capitalized on two of four man-up situations while holding Bowdoin to 0 for 6. The Polar Bears turned the ball over 23 times to 17 for the Jumbos.

2012 NESCAC MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, April 28 at Higher Seeds
at No. 1 Tufts 14, No. 8 Amherst 10
at No. 2 Trinity 14, No. 7 Hamilton 8
at No. 3 Bowdoin 6, No. 6 Wesleyan 4
at No. 4 Connecticut College 11, No. 5 Colby 6

Semifinals - Saturday, May 5 at Tufts
at No. 1 Tufts 13, No. 4 Connecticut College 2
No. 3 Bowdoin 10, vs. No. 2 Trinity 8

Championship - Sunday, May 6 at Tufts
at No. 1 Tufts 9, No. 3 Bowdoin 8 - 2OT

2012 NESCAC MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, April 28 at Higher Seeds
1:00 p.m.
No. 8 at No. 1
No. 7 at No. 2
No. 6 at No. 3
No. 5 at No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, May 5 at Highest Remaining Seed
12:00 p.m./3:00 p.m.
Highest Remaining Seed vs. Lowest Remaining Seed
Remaining First Round Winner

Championship - Sunday, May 6
12:00 p.m.

Format
The top eight teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Men's Lacrosse Championship.  Quarterfinal games will be conducted on Saturday, April 28 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, May 5 and Sunday, May 6, respectively.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. 

Seeding
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of round robin play. Standings will be based on team winning percentages. Ties shall count as half a win.

The 8th seed will play at the 1st seed, the 7th seed will play at the 2nd seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed. Teams will be re-bracketed after first round games and the lowest remaining seed will face the highest remaining seed.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Wednesday, April 25.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

• Best record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).
• Most conference wins (in games that are part of the conference schedule and count toward league standings).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 4 teams (including all teams at the 4th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 8 teams (including all teams at the 8th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against conference teams in rank order.
• Comparisons shall be made one team at a time starting with the highest ranked team.
• If the tie remains after comparing results against the highest ranked team, the results against the next team in rank order shall be used. This process is continued until a winner is determined.
• Coin flip (or similar random action involving all tied teams).

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.