Men's lacrosse gears up for start of season

As piles upon piles of snow descend onto campus, the Tufts men’s lacrosse team prepares to leave Massachusetts this weekend in the hopes of kicking off its season on the right foot. On Saturday, Tufts will travel to Clinton, N.Y. to face off against NESCAC rival Hamilton. Immediately afterwards, the Jumbos will travel to Cortland to battle the Cortland Red Dragons.

Although the back-to-back away games to start the season are a phenomenon the Jumbos didn’t face last season, the desire to win remains as strong as it’s been in recent years. Coach Casey D’Annolfo — who is going into his third year as Tufts’ coach after graduating from Tufts in 2006 — shared the long-term goals for his Jumbo team this season and highlighted the expectations the team needs to meet to get there.

“Our goals are to win the NESCAC and compete for a national championship,” D’Annolfo stated. “Our expectations are more small-picture — we’re really just trying to attack each and every single day, really just trying to take it day by day, so that when we get into one of those big situations, it’s not really a big situation, it’s just sort of the next best step for us.”

Under the confident guide of D’Annolfo, the team has gone 31–8, winning 79.5 percent of its games, which currently stands as the best record for a coach in program history. Last year, the Jumbos capped off their season with an impressive 18–2 record, finishing third in the NESCAC behind rivals Wesleyan and Amherst.

The successful 2018 season ended in a heartbreaking game against Wesleyan in the quarterfinal of the NCAA championship tournament. The Cardinals went on to win the national championship. The Jumbos were down 6–3 to the Cardinals in the first half, but then-junior attacker Ben Connelly — who led the Jumbos with three goals in the game — scored to tie the game at 10-10 with 1:44 remaining in the fourth quarter. As the Jumbos prepared for a possible overtime game, their hopes to compete for an NCAA title were crushed. With 20 seconds remaining in regulation, then-senior midfielder and co-captain Taylor Ghesquiere scored Wesleyan’s winning goal. Following the goal, Wesleyan won the face-off and, seconds later, the game by a score of 12–11.

Despite the disappointing end to the 2018 season, Tufts senior defender and co-captain Arend Broekmate spoke about the expectations the team has moving forward, emphasizing the promise the team showed last year.

“We want to build off the success we had last year,” Broekmate said. “Obviously, it’s a different looking group, with some new [first-years] and the departure of last year’s seniors, but I think we have a lot of experienced people and a lot of hardworking young guys.”

Indeed, the current Jumbo roster going into the 2019 season is nothing short of experienced. The Jumbos graduated 13 total seniors last year — including senior attacker Andrew Seiter (LA ’18), who was second on the team in goals with 50 — and D’Annolfo stressed the impact that the departure of so many defensive players has had on the team.

“From a talent standpoint, obviously we lose our top three defensive midfielders in Zac Lesko, Holden Rosen Grupp, and Cam Irwin,” D’Annolfo said. “Connor Lansdale was one of our captains, and probably the best defensive end in the country as far as I’m concerned, even though he wasn’t a first-team All-American.”

Despite the departure of said players, D’Annolfo also expressed his confidence in this year’s players to fill those roles.

“Guys can go see those openings and do their best to fill them,” he said. “I think we’re a little bit ahead of the curve in terms of talent to fill those holes.”

The current roster still includes huge playmakers that are sure to have an impact on this year's season. On the offensive side of the ball, the Jumbos are led by the likes of senior co-captains and attackers Connelly and Danny Murphy, who together scored 106 of the Jumbos’ 333 goals of the 2018 season. Connelly led the team in goals with 61, while Murphy came in third for goals with 45. Likewise, Murphy, who last year was a second-team All-American, led the team in assists with 45, while Connelly came in second with 21.

The Jumbo defense is also headlined by elite, experienced players at the position, with Broekmate and senior midfielder Henry Hollen standing as two forces to be reckoned with by opponents. They are joined by junior midfielder Nick Shanks, who was the team’s only first-team All-American last season. Their defensive efforts, accompanied by those of junior goalkeeper Mason Pollack — who has a 56.3 percent career save percentage — will prove instrumental in capitalizing on the scoring power of the Tufts offense this season.

Needless to say, expectations remain high for this Tufts team. Broekmate emphasized that in order to get to where they want to be, the team must stay grounded by taking the season one game at a time.

“[We’ve been] making sure we’re focusing on the little things we do that help us be successful on every play, and with that, we can’t get ahead of ourselves,” Broekmate said. “We can’t win the national championship right now; we’re going to have to beat Hamilton on Saturday and then Cortland on Sunday, and keep it rolling. So we’re just taking it day by day and focusing on the little things, the fundamentals, making sure we lock those up, and then the big things will take care of themselves.”

This weekend, the Jumbos will see if they can capitalize on their offseason preparations in two back-to-back away games against Hamilton and Cortland. Although playing back-to-back away games can prove to be a challenge, D’Annolfo spoke about what he hopes to see from his team this weekend.

“We don’t talk about how we're going to play against a particular opponent in terms of a final score, it’s all about how well we can play as a team,” D’Annolfo said. “ It doesn’t matter who we’re going to play, it doesn’t how long the games are, what the weather is like, but rather it’s can we get to a game number one against Hamilton? Can we play great, and then do we have enough mental toughness to reset, readjust and then go out and play great for 60 minutes against Cortland? I think those are some of the big questions for us going into this weekend, and I think we’ve done a good job of preparing them for that.”

On Saturday, the Jumbos will begin their quest towards competing for an NCAA title by traveling to Clinton, N.Y. for a 1 p.m. game against Hamilton. On Sunday, the team travels to battle against Cortland at 1 p.m.