The men's lacrosse team certainly didn't earn style points for its 12-10 win over No. 20 Endicott on Wednesday night, but it did the job nonetheless, improving the Jumbos to 8-1 on the season.
Despite the sloppy play, the final result was the most important thing for Tufts.
"First and foremost, I think that we played a top-20 team who plays very aggressively, and we responded," coach Mike Daly said. "We didn't want it to be that close, and after the first quarter we didn't expect it to be, but it was, and our guys responded in a big situation."
With the score tied at 10-10 late in the fourth quarter, the Jumbos needed to change offensive gears to pull away for the win. After Warner rattled the cage with a shot off the crossbar, senior midfielder Chris Connelly rolled off of a teammate's pick and scored the go-ahead goal with just under five minutes to play.
A beautiful display of teamwork led to the game-icing 12th goal for Tufts. After receiving a pass from fellow defenseman senior Alex Bezdek, senior tri-captain defenseman Wiley Dornseif found junior long-stick midfielder Tucker Merrigan streaking up the left side. Merrigan quickly set a cross-field pass to sophomore midfielder Chase Bibby, who finished the play for his fifth goal of the season, sealing the victory for Tufts.
"When it came down to it in the fourth, we all focused and we just got our jobs done," junior midfielder Joe Cavallo said. "On defense we didn't allow any transition chances and on offense we valued the ball and took smart shots."
Taking advantage of Endicott's early tentative play, Tufts cruised out to a 3-1 lead in the first period. The Gulls controlled possession for much of the quarter but seemed content on swinging the ball around without attacking the cage, whereas Tufts was clinical in its attack when converting three scores.
"Endicott was a little slow to start, and we came out firing, and we jumped out to that quick lead," Cavallo said. "They were possessing the ball a lot, but they weren't doing much, while I felt that when we got the ball, we were creating good shots quickly."
Cavallo deftly beat three defenders single-handedly on a run down the right wing to set up McNally for the game's first goal. After Connelly converted on a high bouncer past Endicott sophomore keeper Sean Kearny, junior attack Connor Ginsberg had possession following a madcap scramble for the ball and fed sophomore attack Clem McNally to give the Jumbos a 3-0 lead.
A defensive miscommunication on the Jumbo side resulted in an open Gull who scored with just four seconds remaining in the period.
Both teams stepped up their physical intensity in the second period with errant passes, hard checks and frequent ground balls. With Endicott facing a one-minute penalty kill early on, the Jumbos made one of their several uncharacteristically sloppy plays in the game, turning the ball over offensively without a shot and then surrendering a goal to a man-down Endicott squad. With Tufts up 4-2, sophomore attack Nick Cosco scored his first of three goals on another Jumbo mental error, slipping in unmarked behind the defense to receive a pass from midfield and convert on a breakaway. Despite these mistakes, the Jumbos still took a 5-3 lead to the locker room at halftime.
"All of those goals [in the first quarter], we were pushing those plays in transition, creating those opportunities, and it's a fine line," Daly said. "Later in the game people might say that our play was sloppy, but we can't be afraid to make mistakes if we're playing aggressively and up-tempo."
Eight seconds into the third, Cosco set the tone for the period in emphatic fashion, scooping up a ground ball, and firing a strike past sophomore Matt Harrigan to pull Endicott within one. His goal seemed to rock the Jumbos back on their heels defensively; the team amassed three penalties in the quarter, and Gulls converted on two of the three man-up opportunities and scored a third goal immediately after the penalty expired.
Mistakes continued to plague the Jumbos in the first 10 minutes of the quarter, as Endicott took a 7-6 lead, its first of the game, after Harrigan threw a poor outlet pass that resulted in a Gulls breakaway goal.
But a quick timeout from Daly refocused the Jumbos, as the defense resumed its smothering first-quarter pressure and the offense began to click. Warner found a cage-crashing Ginsberg from behind the net for the equalizer at the 5:10 mark in the third and set up McNally's go-ahead goal in almost exactly the same manner two minutes later. A late goal from the Gulls sent the teams to the fourth quarter deadlocked at eight.
"I just reminded them of exactly what we came there to do, settled them down, and let them know that it was fine that we were making mistakes but don't get tentative," Daly said.
Senior midfielder Mike Cortese and McNally scored in quick succession to open the fourth quarter, but an unforced turnover on a clear attempt resulted in an Endicott goal at the 10:39 mark, and Cosco's third goal of the game knotted the game at 10-10 with seven-and-a-half minutes to play before the Jumbos finally pulled away.
The victory is Tufts' third against a ranked opponent this year. The squad will square off against a solid Bowdoin team in NESCAC play tomorrow in Brunswick, Maine.
