In a 14-5 win, one might expect the offense to be the story of the game, but it was the defense that led the Massachusetts men’s lacrosse team to victory on Saturday.

The No. 5 Minutemen (6-0) held Hartford (1-4) to four goals after the Hawks pounded Brown – a historically strong men’s lacrosse team – 20-6.

UMass limited Hartford to only 16 shots on goal and forced 10 more to go wide of the net.

The Minutemen also won the turnover battle, forcing the Hawks to turn the ball over 14 times compared to their own 12. Also the Minutemen picked up 24 ground balls to Hartford’s 17.

Leading the way on ground balls was Anthony Toresco with four. Two UMass players, Tom Celentani and Greg Rushing, followed closely with three.

Ryan Hollenbaugh, Ryan Izzo and Jake Smith carried the defense in terms of turnovers, with each forcing a pair.  Of the 14 turnovers for the Hawks, the Minutemen forced 11.

UMass coach Greg Cannella was very pleased with his team’s performance Saturday against Hartford stating that it was an all-around team victory.

“We won face-offs, so that helps, you know extra possessions on our side,” said Cannella. “It was a great job by those three guys, Greg Rushing and Joe Calvello and Anthony Toresco. You can go down the list. The short sticks did a good job. They all did a really good job of covering one-on-one and that what you really need.”

When it came to face-offs, UMass had the large advantage winning 15 of the total 22 face-offs in the game.

The Minutemen also only committed three penalties to the Hawks five, meaning for the most part, UMass was playing smart on the defensive end and not giving Hartford a man-up opportunity.

Perhaps the star of the defense in this game was red-shirt senior goalkeeper Tim McCormack. He came up with 11 big saves en route to the win.

McCormack has won all six games for the Minutemen in which he has a goals-against average of 6.65 and a save percentage of 61.8 percent.

When he was asked about his performance, McCormack gave the credit to assistant coach and former Major League Lacrosse champion Doc Schneider.

“Doc and I have just been working on being consistent, staying calm and collective and getting the job done. So that’s what I have been trying to work on,” he said.

McCormack and the UMass defense have now held their first six opponents all to under 10 goals. The five goals it gave up against Hartford was only bettered by the three goals the Minutemen gave up against No. 12 Ohio State earlier in the year.

Heading into this week, UMass stood in a tie for eighth place in the NCAA for scoring defense, allowing on average seven goals per game. After this week’s wins against Hartford and Albany, the Minutemen have dropped that average to 6.67 and are in position to move higher up the leader board in scoring defense.

Cameron McDonough can be reached at [email protected] and followed on twitter at MDC_McDonough.