It was a tale of two halves in Saturday's season opener, as the No. 2 men's lacrosse team battled back from a one-goal halftime deficit to outscore Hamilton 10-2 in the final 30 minutes. The Jumbos ultimately defeated the host Continentals 15-8, earning their first victory of the year and giving the hosts their first taste of NESCAC competition.
The two teams squared off on a bitterly cold day in Clinton, N.Y., where several inches of snow accumulated overnight and the game-time temperature was below freezing. In the end, it was the Jumbos who iced the Continentals with senior Nick Rhoads leading the way by winning a sensational 19 of 25 faceoffs.
"Everyone on the team has so much confidence in Nick that I don't think it surprised anyone how well he did," said sophomore midfielder Beau Wood, who earned his first start on Saturday. "Our wing guys also did an extremely good job eliminating their opponents from the ground ball battle, and it was important that Nick generated fast transitions right off the faceoff."
"We've been looking forward to this game since we started," senior co-captain midfielder Kevin McCormick said. "Coming up the night before helped so that we didn't have to leave early in the morning on Saturday and we were relaxed and could get to the field with time to spare. Once we were there it was easy to get up for the game and we were just more than ready to play someone besides ourselves."
While senior co-captain attackman Sean Kirwan sat out the game with a sprained ankle, McCormick and Wood each contributed four goals and an assist for a combined total of 10 points.
"Because of the hard work we put in during the offseason and the preseason, meshing with the returning contributors wasn't really a problem for us," Wood said. "I think we definitely had some jitters coming into the game, but at the same time, the game atmosphere and all of our teammates created a great amount of confidence."
Tufts jumped out to a 1-0 lead when Wood scored just 40 seconds into the contest, and McCormick doubled the Jumbos' advantage with a strike of his own past Continentals' senior keeper Max Vaickus less than a minute later.
"Scoring the first two goals so quickly was definitely a key for us," Wood said. "It set the tone of how the game was going to be played, and we like to play at an up-tempo pace."
Two minutes in, the Jumbos appeared well on their way to victory, but the Continentals answered with three quick goals of their own to take the lead. Later, after a failed clearance gave Hamilton the ball and an empty cage from 40 yards out, Tufts sophomore goalkeeper Patton Watkins, who stopped eight shots on the afternoon, made an impressive save to reject the Continentals' long-range snipe.
McCormick, Wood and sophomore midfielder Peter Bowers added tallies in the up-and-down half to push Tufts' lead back to two, but Hamilton captain Luke Sadoff and sophomore attacker Paul Armideo each bested Watkins to equalize at 5-5.
With less than two minutes left in the half, Hamilton senior attackman Jon Leanos helped midfielder PaxAnthos to a man-up score, giving Hamilton a one-goal advantage heading into the intermission.
"Going into the half, you would have never guessed that we were down," Wood said. "I think that just shows the trust and confidence that our team has. Coach [Mike] Daly basically just told us that we needed to do our jobs and let the opportunities come to us.
"We knew that they had firepower on offense, so we knew that they would answer our scoring runs with runs of their own," Wood added. "I think the key to coming out in the second half was the physicality of our defense. They played well [and] caused a ton of turnovers in transition."
The Jumbos emerged from the break with a heightened sense of urgency, peppering Vaickus with shots and playing the majority of the half with the same intensity they showed in the game's opening minutes. The Jumbos took 25 shots in the second half, compared to just 15 in the first, and their depth proved to be too much for the Continentals' defenders, who were relatively untested against NESCAC-caliber offenses.
"That's something that happens — [it happened] last year too. We get going a little late," McCormick said. "We missed some opportunities in the first half. But we gathered ourselves and put the pieces together offensively and defensively. The defense only giving up two goals in the second half allowed us to convert more and really get the ball on cage for some better looks. We learned from our mistakes and really put together a great second effort."
Five minutes into the third quarter, McCormick notched his third goal of the day to tie the game, and the Jumbos never looked back. Wood, Bowers, senior George Shafer and junior Geoff Sheasby also added goals during the 5-1 run.
In the final quarter, Tufts outscored Hamilton 5-1 yet again, and after Sadoff buried a feed from junior Luke Walsh at the 9:50 mark, Watkins and the Jumbos' defense posted a shutout for the remainder of the contest.
Freshman Cole Bailey, who anchored the offense from behind the net for much of the afternoon, notched his first collegiate goal, while Bowers, Wood, Shafer and McCormick finished off multi-point days with goals in the final minutes.
"Offensively it was great to see guys step up yesterday, with Beau and Cole getting their first starts and coming up big," McCormick said. "They had a lot of confidence, and Pete Bowers also had a game. It was really great in our first game to see the younger guys step up and fill the voids, and even with [Kirwan] out, Sheasby played a pretty great game in his place."
While Hamilton consistently struggled to push the ball in transition, finishing 17-for-28 on clear attempts, Tufts completed all but one of its own, executing their transition game flawlessly.
"[Saturday] was huge for our defensive game," McCormick said. "We cleared the ball well from the defensive end all the way to the offensive end. Our attack rode great with the help of our middies and long poles, so that was a real factor, and we turned a lot of their turnovers on clears into goals. We're always working on pushing the ball, riding hard and just looking to move the ball up the field and attacking goal."
Tufts held Hamilton's biggest scoring threats, Leanos and senior Henry Burchenal, to a combined four points. With the exception of two short-lived scoring runs in the first half, the Jumbos' defense — anchored by veteran juniors John Heard, Sam Gardner and Matt Callahan — shut down the Continentals.
"Having all those returners on defense really gives the rest of our team great confidence," McCormick said. "We trust everyone who's on the field to do their job, and obviously those guys and Patton in the cage make our job easier. We know they're going to hold it down on their end and it's our job to convert on the other end."
Plenty of critics doubted the offense's ability to produce goals with a revamped roster coming into the season, but the Jumbos did all they could to silence them on Saturday, proving that they are ready to turn to a new page in the program.
Tufts will play its home opener tomorrow against Conn. College, which is 0-1 in the NESCAC after a 7-5 loss to No. 18 Bowdoin.
"Our focus is all on [Conn.] right now," McCormick said. "They and us are the only two teams standing in our way, and so starting Monday we'll watch some film and start game-planning. We'll be ready."
