Men’s Lacrosse Advances In NESCACs

This past week, the Trinity College Men's Lacrosse team had a busy weekend, playing two games against New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) rivals.  In the first game on Friday, April 29th, Trinity took on the Amherst College Lord Jeffs as they closed out their regular season, and fell by a final score of 8-6. 

In their second game of the week, a NESCAC playoff matchup, the Bantams took on the Cardinals of Wesleyan University on Sunday, beating them 10-5 to advance to the second round.  Trinity will play Middlebury College on Saturday, May 7 at Tufts in their NESCAC semifinal.

On Friday, the Lord Jeffs controlled possession early, winning the opening faceoff and getting several chances on the Bantam cage, but goalkeeper Peter Johnson ‘12 made three impressive saves early to keep the game scoreless. The Bantams opened the scoring with 10:12 remaining in the opening period when Nick Shaheen '13 one-timed a shot past the Amherst goalie.  The Lord Jeffs battled back to take a 5-3 lead by the end of the half, however, leaving Trinity some work to do over the final 30 minutes.

The Bantams responded well during the opening stages of the third quarter, getting a goal with 12 and a half to go from Rob Nogueras ‘13, but Amherst was able to restore their two goal cushion almost immediately after.  Finally, Trinity was able to tie the game with two quick goals in the middle stages of the fourth quarter, as Greg Brennan '11 and Steve Manning '13 netted goals less than 45 seconds apart.  Both teams battled for three more scoreless minutes before Amherst junior attacker Cole Cherney broke the deadlock with 3:38 remaining. 

After a quick push by the Bantams, however, Cherney was able to score once more with only 2:09 remaining to take the win for the Lord Jeffs.  Brennan lead the Bantams in scoring with two tallies, while Johnson made eight saves in the Trinity net. On Sunday, the Bantams controlled play from the beginning, scoring four goals before the game was six minutes old.  Comfortably in the lead early in the game, Trinity took a penalty call that led to a goal for the Cardinals in a man-up situation, but the Bantams were able to answer back. 

The teams then traded goals until the break, which saw the Bantams up by a comfortable 6-3 margin.  Wesleyan was able to get a goal with  less than a minute into the third quarter to put some pressure on the Bantams, but Trinity closed out the game admirably. They controlled possession for long stretches and scored four of the final five goals, including the last two, to end Wesleyan's season and send the Bantams through.

Nine different players scored for Trinity, with senior Kevin Looby the only player to record multiple tallies.  Goalkeeper Peter Johnson ‘12 was stellar in the Trinity net again, making 11 saves, several of them difficult, out of the 16 shots he faced.