The No. 3 ranked, undefeated Tufts men’s lacrosse team narrowly beat No. 17 Amherst 18–14in a back-and-forth battle on Bello Field on Sunday. The Jumbos improved to 3–0 on the season while the Mammoths dropped to 1–1.
Sunday’s game was played in honor of Drew Kelleher, Amherst lacrosse ‘18, who passed away on Dec. 20, 2021. Drew’s younger brother, Camden Kelleher, is a senior co-captain on the Tufts team and took the opening faceoff to honor his brother. Kelleher was a key spark for the Jumbos in this game, scoring twice and assisting three goals.
Amherst did not play last season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore, their team consisted of many new players on the field. With more unknown of what the Mammoths would look like this year, the Jumbos put emphasis on playing their game.
“It was a pretty interesting preparation process just because they didn’t play last year, and a lot of the contributors they had from 2020 [have] graduated now. So we didn't have that much tape to prepare,” junior defender Kyle Adelmann said. “Coach [D’Annolfo] says it all the time that it just gives us a lot more time to focus on ourselves and what we can do to be the best team possible.”
Tufts opened up the scoring just over a minute into the game, when junior midfielder Jack Boyden scored off a pass from junior attackman Tommy Swank. Boyden went on to score three goals and had four assists in the game. The two teams traded goals until the Jumbos went on a five goal run after being down 3–2 to close out the first quarter up 7–3.
The second quarter was evenly matched — each team put up four more goals during the second 15 minutes of play. Amherst junior attackman Brock Gonzalez scored four goals in the first half and finished the game with two assists and a career-high five goals for seven points. Tufts led Amherst 11–7 going into halftime.
The Mammoths fought back in the third quarter, ultimately out scoring the Jumbos 4–2, despite junior attackman Kurt Bruun notching two goals in that quarter. Bruun earned a double hat trick, scoring a career-high six goals. Amherst first-year goalie Mitch Likins kept the Mammoths in the game with 15 saves on 24 shots faced, including 13 saves in the second half of the game.
“Today was really one of the first times we’ve been tested in terms of resilience,” Adelmann said. “This game was really neck-and-neck the entire time. … Obviously, it’s Amherst, they’re one of our rivals, they're always going to give us the best game that they have. They're a really skilled team, really well coached.”
The battle continued into the beginning of the fourth quarter, with Amherst junior midfielder Tanyr Krummenacher scoring back-to-back goals, bringing the game within one goal with six minutes left of play. However, the Jumbos sealed off their win with a three-goal run at the end of the game. First-year midfielder Charlie Tagliaferri recorded a hat trick, highlighted by an around-the-world shot as well as an empty-netter, the final goal of the game.
“Our biggest thing today was just being gritty [and] our resilience,” Adelmann said. “They threw a lot of different stuff at us in terms of their offensive sets, which was really good for our defense to be able to … improvise and play off of each other, and I think at times we did that really well.”
On the defensive end, first-year Joey Waldbaum picked up six ground balls and caused three turnovers. Graduate student and co-captain Taggart Eymer and Adelmann recorded three ground balls and two caused turnovers each. Sophomore goalie Conner Garzone made 15 saves, including six in both the second and fourth quarters.
Tufts will travel down and play at Stevens on Saturday and play at Lynchburg the following Tuesday over spring break.
The Jumbos will look to retain their “really fast, really aggressive” style of play while also trying to be a little bit less rushed and more methodical and careful in their decision making, Adelmann said.
“I think [we beat] teams with our pace — we like to play a really up tempo offense and a really fast transition defense and offense. So the more we can play into that, the more teams are going to struggle to play against us.”
