Jumbos open season with rout of MIT

If the men's lacrosse team's convincing 16-4 victory over the MIT Engineers on Saturday is any indication of what is to come for the 2004 season, the 20th nationally ranked Jumbos have an exciting two months ahead.

Junior attackman Bryan Griffin, the reigning New England player of the year, led the way for Tufts with four goals and six assists adding up to ten points.

"I was really impressed with the way Bryan played," senior tri-captain Tom Mulcahy said. "He really let the game come to him; he didn't press it or push it at all. [MIT] was playing him pretty hard because they know who he is, but he was dishing it off and letting other people score. He had a great game."

Griffin helped start the Jumbo barrage when the team came blazing out of the gate in the first half. Tufts knocked MIT on its heels and pushed the score to 2-0 after just one minute and 19 seconds. Griffin initiated the assault with his first goal of game, which was promptly followed by sophomore Mike O'Brien's tally about a minute later.

After this quick beginning, the scoring abated until MIT cut Tufts' lead in half with a man-up goal by Jonathan Stolmeier off an assist by Scott Purchase with 1:03 left in the first quarter. However, this 2-1 score was as close as the Engineers would come to the surging Jumbos.

"We got a little flat [in the middle of the first half]," Mulcahy said. "Once we got the first game kinks out, we starting scoring more."

Tufts posted five unanswered goals in the second period. MIT eeked one out with 44 seconds remaining in the first half, but never managed to claw its way back into the contest.

The Jumbos continued to build their lead with a dominant third quarter. Freshman Mark Warner broke into his collegiate career with back-to-back goals contributing to the six the Jumbos scored in the quarter.

"The third quarter was when we really got comfortable," Mulcahy said. "We were getting a lot of looks in the first half, but we didn't finish a lot of shots. They just started falling for us in the third."

Junior goalie Luke Chicco helped keep the Engineer offense at bay, making ten saves in the cage and picking up his first win of the season. MIT goalie Christopher Ng was not as successful despite making 22 stops as the Jumbos fired in from all sides.

"We scored goals in a lot of different ways," Mulcahy said. "It wasn't just our attack or our offensive middies; our defensive middies got some and we scored both settled and unsettled goals."

Warner, along with Mulcahy and classman David Taylor all scored twice for Tufts. Six other players managed to put the ball in the back of the cage as well making the win a total team effort.

"It's good to know we don't have to rely on just one or two people to put the ball in the net for us," Mulcahy said. "We were pretty calm and confident."

The team will suit up again on Wednesday to take on Eastern Connecticut College at Endicott College in Beverley, MA. Until then, the Jumbos will continue to work on fine tuning fundamental skills and getting back into the swing of the season.

"Eastern Connecticut State will be better than MIT was," Mulcahy said. "We were having a little trouble matching up and figuring out what [MIT] was doing, so we'll work on that. We're picking up right where we left off last season."