Howard-Johnson's overtime goal lifts Tufts over Endicott

The men's lacrosse team had a busy week, with conference games against the Williams Ephs last Wednesday and the Hamilton Continentals on Saturday, followed by a non-conference match-up against the Endicott Gulls on Tuesday night. While the team won both NESCAC games fairly decisively, the Endicott game, played under the lights on Bello Field, saw Tufts fall behind early and gain its only lead of the game when they won in sudden death overtime, 11-10. Tufts students and family members were out in full force to support the Jumbos on Wednesday with former players Beau Wood (LA ’14), DJ Hessler (LA ’11) and Nate Marchand (LA ’14) — among others — in the stands.

The third ranked Jumbos went down two goals early to the unranked Gulls, largely due to two face-off violations by senior Conor Helfrich, which immediately gave the Gulls possession. Head coach Mike Daly put junior Tucker Mathers at the face-off position, which paid off as Mathers won the third face-off with the ground ball picked up by sophomore Zach Lesko. Senior Jake Gillespie threatened the goal several times, with one shot missing the goal by an inch and a strong check preventing him from accurately shooting a second time. Finally, senior co-captain Ben Andreycak found the open man in senior Garrett Clarke who dodged the goalie’s diving save and easily found the net for Tufts' first score.Endicott junior Tommy Hughes was called for pushing during a face-off against Helfrich, giving the Jumbos both possession and a man-up opportunity. The Tufts attackers worked the ball around the crease quickly, trying to find the opening. When a pass went wide, two Endicott defenders chased after Andreycak. However, Andreycak came up with the ball and, because of the defensive mistake made by Endicott, easily found junior Zach Richman wide open in front of the net for an easy score. The rest of the first quarter was marked by an uncharacteristically high number of unforced errors from the Jumbos, who missed several simple passes to turn the ball over to the Gulls several times. The quarter rounded out with Endicott scoring two more goals to go 4-2 up.

One of the stars of the game was Endicott's goalie, senior tri-captain Cameron Bell, who made 20 saves. Early in the second quarter, Tufts senior co-captain John Uppgren fired off a dangerous shot only for it to be saved by Bell. Bell quickly cleared the ball, and in less than a minute the Gulls found the goal again.

“I thought [Bell] stole a couple from us,” Uppgren said. “We were pushing a little too hard and we weren’t taking great shots. Luckily our defense and the face-off phase made some huge plays that gave us some extra opportunities, and at the end of the game we were able to make shots where it counted.”

Endicott's goal was followed by 10 scoreless minutes, during which Gillespie unluckily had a shot bounce off the goal post. The Jumbos had trouble converting in the attack from both sides as well as another uncharacteristic offside call from the Jumbos that resulted in an avoidable turnover. With a minute remaining in the half, Gillespie scored an unassisted goal to bring the Jumbos back within two, but they went into halftime down 5-3.

The third quarter opened with several unfinished attempts from either team, but Clarke eventually found the net on an unassisted run from the left side halfway through to get his team within one. Some of the Jumbos’ signature attacking moves failed to work against Bell, and the team was left frustrated as the ball moved back into their defensive end after another shot from Andreycak went off the post. Endicott then scored two more goals, the first due to a face-off win and the second because of a man-up opportunity, to increase their lead to 7-4. But in the last two minutes of the quarter, the Jumbos gained some ground as Andreycak fed Richman right in front of the goal for a score and then scored a goal himself 42 seconds later with a diving shot from around the crease. With the score now 7-6 in favor of the Gulls, the final minute of the third quarter saw four more attempts on goal for the Jumbos, but Bell saved three of them and the fourth went wide.

The Gulls still had the Jumbos playing catch-up in the fourth quarter, going up 10-8 with just under five minutes remaining. Coming in clutch though, Uppgren and Andreycak both found the net with less than 3:30 to play to push the game to overtime. Mathers played a huge role in giving the Jumbos the equalizer, as he returned to the face-off position and was able to win to get the ball to Jumbo sticks.

Just 27 seconds into the four-minute overtime, senior Kyle Howard-Johnson, who at that point in the game had gone 0-9 in shots, found the back of the net from distance to give the Jumbos the sudden death victory. The team went wild and stormed the field while many Tufts fans celebrated. Uppgren attributed the victory to the team staying calm despite playing from behind late in the game.

“There was no change,” Uppgren said. “We don’t want to slow it down or freak out or anything. We just had to stick to our plan and it paid off in the end.”

Last Saturday, Tufts traveled to Clinton, New York for a conference match-up against Hamilton. Although the Jumbos looked as if they would dominate early on with four unanswered goals from Uppgren, Andreycak and Gillespie (who had two), the Continentals answered with three goals to end the first quarter.The second quarter saw the Jumbos open up a more significant lead, with unassisted goals from Uppgren (two) and Andreycak, as well as goals from Richman and sophomore Connor Lansdale to go into halftime up 9-5.

The Continentals started the second half strongly and allowed the Jumbos to score just one goal while scoring four themselves, narrowing the gap to two going into the final 15 minutes. Although Hamilton scored a goal at the very beginning of the final quarter, strong Tufts defense shut the hosts out for the rest of the game while its offense scored eight goals to open up a wide margin. The Continentals failed to defend against the Jumbos’ exploitation of the crease, and many Jumbos were able to score unassisted. In the fourth quarter, Gillespie, Clarke (with two) and Andreycak (with two) all scored unassisted, while Howard-Johnson and Richman (with two) scored assisted goals as well.

The Hamilton game was merely a continuation of Tufts' domination of the NESCAC, which was also evident last Wednesday against Williams, who were 2-2 in conference action going into the game. The Jumbo offense poured in 22 goals in the win, as Uppgren and Gillespie both scored six, Andreycak, Richman and Clarke each netted three while sophomore Frank Hattler scored once.

“We were pushing it right from the start, we got our offense moving fairly quickly, things were clicking right away," Gillespie said in reference to the Williams game. "We were making that extra pass, attacking the net a lot harder and dodging to score rather than dodging to feed.”

Although Tufts took fewer shots than Williams, their shots were more accurate, with 32 of 45 shots on target, while only half of Williams’ 50 shots were on target. Furthermore, Tufts played a clean game, receiving no penalty calls, while Williams received two for pushing and unnecessary roughness.

Tufts next plays Amherst at home on Saturday, who are currently ranked second in the conference. The Purple and White squad is probably the Jumbos’ closest competitor in the always-tough NESCAC. They defeated the Jumbos 12-6 last season and are currently ranked sixth in the nation, while the Jumbos are ranked third. On Saturday, Tufts will hope to exact revenge for last year's defeat in one of their biggest games of the year at Bello Field, starting at 1:00 p.m.

“The past four years its always been close at Amherst," Gillespie said. "Obviously they beat us one time last year, but the last time we played [in the NESCAC Championship game and in the NCAA Championship Quarterfinals] we beat them. They hate us, we hate them. So it should be a fun game to play.”