Box Score Recap courtesy of Colby College
WATERVILLE, ME - Tufts University, the defending national champions and the top-ranked team in the country, had to hold off a second-half rally from Colby College to secure an 11-9 win in NESCAC men's lacrosse on Saturday at Bill Alfond Field.
In a game where both goalies had fine outings, the two teams combined for 110 shots, 68 groundballs, and 62 turnovers.
Tufts goalie Alex Salazar made 15 saves, while Colby goaltender Tyler Will made 24 stops.
The Jumbos (4-0 overall, 2-0 NESCAC) came into the game averaging nearly 20 goals per game, but the Mules bounced back after a slow start to make it tough on Tufts.
Tufts scored three goals in the opening 5:05 of the contest for a 3-0 lead. However, the Mules settled down and only trailed 3-1 after the first quarter. Colby cut it to 4-3 when Kevin Seiler scored from John Grimaldi with 1:52 to halftime. The Jumbos, though, received goals from Jake Gillespie with 1:30 to go and Garrett Clarke with just 43 seconds to play for a 6-3 halftime lead.
Garrett Reed gave Tufts a 7-3 lead just 1:05 into the second half. The Mules (2-2 overall, 1-2 NESCAC) responded with consecutive goals from Derek Youngman and Conor MacLaverty to cut the margin to 7-5.
The Jumbos went back up by four at 9-5 when Austin Carbone tallied with 7:23 left in the third quarter and Curt Townshend scored with 5:05 to go.
The Mules refused to give up and again scored two straight goals. Grimaldi scored on a nice feed from Alex Rutan with 3:39 left in the third and Austin Sayre rifled in a shot with 1:58 to play.
Possibly the biggest goal of the game came with just 18 seconds left in the third quarter. Tufts' Tyler Carbone scored unassisted for a 10-7 margin heading into the final 15 minutes.
The goal was important because the Mules scored two straight goals to cut the lead to 10-9 with 8:08 to play. Sam Wasserman scored on a long blast and then Seiler scored one of the nicer goals of the game on a one-timer off a pass from Austin Sayre.
Tufts scored the final goal of the game with 6:12 to play when Peter Gill drove to the left and fired in a shot to the lower right corner.
Both teams had opportunities to either cut into the lead or extend the lead in the final six minutes. Salazar and Will both came up with some solid stops during the final minutes.
The game featured two of the top face-off men in the NESCAC in Conor Helfrich of Tufts and Colby's Austin Frank. Helfrich had the better start to the game and was 12-for-23 on the day with five groundballs. Frank came on strong as the game progressed and was 11-for-24 and scooped nine groundballs.
Gillespie had a pair of goals for the Jumbos, while Austin Carbone finished with one goal and two assists.
Derek Youngman led all scorers with three goals. Seiler added two goals and Grimaldi had one goal and two assists.
Cem Kalkavan and Chris Sawyer each had three caused turnovers for the Jumbos. Read had five groundballs and teammates Jeff Chang and Kalkavan finished with four.
Kenny Jacobson had a big game on defense for the Mules, scooping seven groundballs and causing four turnovers. Jacobson spent a lot of time on John Uppgren, who came into the game with a NESCAC-best 16 goals and 10 assists in the first three games of the season. Jacobson and the rest of Colby's defense held Uppgren to one goal on 13 shots and forced nine turnovers.
Will had the 24 saves and also contributed four groundballs and three caused turnovers.
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