After losing a crucial NESCAC game to rival Tufts, the men’s lacrosse team traveled to Amherst, where it lost 13-6 in a NESCAC quarterfinal playoff game. The loss ends the team’s season and drops their record to 9-7. The Polar Bears ended the season on a five game losing streak.
The team’s loss against Tufts only three days earlier negatively impacted its playoff seed, giving them a tougher opening-game matchup.
“It’s definitely not how you want to end the season,” said Mac Caputi ’15. “I think if you look at the season as a whole we still did pretty well, so we can’t afford to dwell on all the bad stuff.”
In the Amherst game, the team fell behind by four goals, trailing 6-2 at halftime. However, the Polar Bears fought back at the start of the second half after Connor O’Toole ’14 netted two unassisted goals.
Amherst responded quickly, scoring one minute after O’Toole’s second goal.
“Every time we got a little momentum, they kind of stopped us with their own streak of a few goals” said Cody Dussault ’15.
Later in the third quarter, the Lord Jeffs pulled away from Bowdoin with four straight goals.
“I feel like we got away from our systems—we stopped running our offenses the way we should,” said Brett Kujala ’17. “We had a lot smarter shots, but we just kind of got stupid in the last game.”
Bowdoin’s Franklin Reis ’14 added a goal late in the fourth quarter, but it was too little, too late as the Polar Bears fell 13-6.
Bowdoin defeated Amherst 17-15 at Howard Ryan Field in early March. That win was part of a season-opening three-game win streak, which at one point placed Bowdoin atop the NESCAC standings.
“Amherst kind of caught us on a bad day this year,” said Caputi. “What we were doing earlier on in the year—and just in general—is when we needed a big ground ball to keep a possession alive or put to an end to one of their possessions, we made the big play. We weren’t able to do that on Saturday.”
The Polar Bears will graduate six seniors this year, including starting defensemen Dylan Hannes and Ben Brewster.
“It’ll definitely be hard to replace a guy like Brewster, who makes big plays and influences the momentum of the game,” said Dussault. “We’re going to have to play a lot better now that we do not have an impact player like Brew.”
“Brewster is probably one of the best defensive players in the NESCAC, and he was a guy who could pick up five ground balls a game, force three or four turnovers a game, and just shadow the best attacker or the best player for the other team,” said Caputi.
The Polar Bears will also lose seniors Reis, O’Toole and Will Wise in the midfield.
“We lose about 160 points from Frank Reis, Dan Hanley [’14] and O’Toole,” said Kujala.
As the team looks ahead to next year, the juniors have the responsibility of ensuring that the team fills the voids left by graduating players.
“Becoming a senior defenseman, there’s a lot more expected of my performance and sort of helping some of the younger guys along,” said Caputi. “It can be difficult—especially for freshmen adjusting to the speed of the college game from high school.”
The team will benefit from the return of Tyler Williams ’15, who broke his wrist in early April in a game against Colby. Caputi said that Williams was consistently “scoring huge goals” for the Polar Bears before his injury.
The team will look to improve next year and make a deeper run into the NESCAC tournament.
“As long as we’re doing what we’re supposed to in the weight room in the summer and in the fall, and getting out and playing, I think we’ll be fine” said Caputi.