With just under three minutes remaining in the second overtime of Saturday's game against No. 12 Bates, junior Brett Holm grabbed the ball at the top of the arc, dodged a defenseman and passed to freshman Clem McNally, open in the crease.
McNally promptly nailed a difficult shot to claim the sudden death victory with 2:40 remaining in the overtime period, handing his team an 8-7 victory.
"We had set it up on offense and we knew what we wanted to do because coach [Mike Daly] called a certain play," McNally said.
The Jumbos handed Bates its second loss of the season, dropping the Bobcats out of a first-place NESCAC tie with Middlebury and into second, tied with Bowdoin and Wesleyan. They are now 5-2 in the conference and 9-2 overall. The win improved the Tufts squad to 9-4 on the season and 4-3 in conference play.
Bates was never able to contain McNally, who finished the day with five goals and an assist. He wasted no time, snaring his first just 1:13 into the game, assisted by senior midfielder Mike O'Brien.
The Tufts lead was short-lived, however, as Bates' senior Brenton Pitt countered with a goal of his own a minute and a half later.
"I thought we did pretty well [in the first half]," McNally said. "We scored five goals, we kept the ball settled on offense, and we ran our offense and waited for guys to be open. We didn't force anything that wasn't there."
While both teams remained scoreless for the middle seven minutes of the first quarter, they turned on the offensive output for the last five minutes of play. Tufts scored twice, one coming from McNally and the other from junior midfielder Chris Connelly, and Bates notched three unassisted goals on shots by sophomore Mike Medeiros, junior Matt Erisman and sophomore Justin Simon.
Bates' Erisman tallied another goal to start the second quarter. For Tufts, junior midfielder Brett Holm scored unassisted and McNally got his hat trick with a shot fed by assist-leader Mark Warner, who has recorded 15 on the season.
"Mark's a really good player; he's probably the best feeder on our team," McNally said. "He sees the field really well, so when people are open he finds them."
The offenses were fairly evenly matched in the first half, with both teams taking 17 shots. With the help of strong first-half defensive efforts - freshman goalie Matt Harrigan made eight saves while Bates' goalie Paul Kazarian grabbed four - the game remained a close 7-6 at halftime.
The second half was much slower on the offensive end, as both teams remained scoreless for the last 20 minutes of regulation. The Jumbo's defense was 11-for-14 on clears in the game, and 6-for-8 in the final two periods as the Bobcats searched for a shot.
"Our defense really held us together," senior co-captain Rory Doucette said. "They punched out well, only letting one goal in the whole second half."
The Jumbo offense helped out as the defense held strong on the other end. Doucette and junior Matt Lanuto won 13 of 19 face-offs, obtaining initial possessions after each score and putting the ball in Tufts sticks.
"If you own the possessions, you own the game," Doucette said.
The Jumbos will round out the season with two home games against NESCAC-rival Wesleyan on Wednesday and Connecticut College on Saturday.
"We expected a good game," Doucette said. "Bates is a very good team who has been getting better each year, but we went in there prepared. It was an emotional win for us, but we still have two competitive games next week that are important in the race for the playoffs."
