In a cold and windy affair at Garber Field, the Massachusetts men’s lacrosse team came away with its second consecutive win, defeating Dartmouth on Tuesday afternoon. Facing off against the Big Green (1-1) for the first time since 1991, the Minutemen (2-1) held on for an 11-7 win.
UMass used a strong start in the second half to put itself in command of the game, scoring five of the first six goals after halftime. The Big Green, however, were resilient and refused to go away. At the end of the game, Dartmouth reeled off three in a row to get it to within three goals before time ran out. After trailing 5-0 to start the game, Dartmouth also scored three straight to make it a manageable 5-3 at halftime.
“It was a hard fought game, Dartmouth’s a good team,” head coach Greg Cannella said. “We were solid on the defensive end, through three quarters giving up three goals. Things got a little wild in the fourth quarter, [we] fouled a couple times. The tenacity that we played with is something that we’re going to need in our next 11 contests for sure.”
The game began with over 10 minutes of scoreless action before Matthew Cargiulo got the Minutemen on the board at the 4:49 mark of the first quarter. UMass had several opportunities to convert early on that bounced out in unfortunate fashion. One shot by Aiden Drunsic bounced off the crossbar and then off the left post, before a second chance opportunity by Drunsic was saved by Mason Morel.
After scoring 19 goals on Friday against Quinnipiac, UMass began to get back to its scoring ways in the second quarter, unleashing four straight goals to take a 5-0 lead. Trace Hogan set up shop behind the net and passed it inside to a cutting Robbie Granara for the easy score that put the Minutemen up by five.
Dartmouth had a reply to this strong start by UMass, scoring three goals to wrap up the second quarter and holding the Minutemen scoreless for the final 8:18 of the frame.
“We just told the guys to hold the line, just keep playing,” Cannella said. “We felt that we had more opportunities in the first half, [we] didn’t score them even though we were up 5-0. We knew that Dartmouth was going to get some quality opportunities … we just told them to keep playing, play your butts off.”
On Tuesday, UMass had three players lead the team in goal scoring with Drunsic, Zach Auble and Granara recording two goals each. Granara, the rising freshman, was the team’s points leader with three, tacking on his first career assist in addition to his two scores.
Auble was active on both ends of the field for the Minutemen, finishing with a stat line that included two goals, five ground balls and one caused turnover. Auble began his scoring in the third quarter with a snipe from the right side of the net using his long pole, assisted by Blaise New.
In the fourth quarter, William Stahl of Dartmouth was double teamed by New and Matthew Petito, causing Stahl to throw the ball away. The ball landed right in front of Auble, who picked up the ground ball with his pole and took it all the way down the field for his second goal of the afternoon.
“[Auble] has done a good job here, he’s a junior now,” Cannella said. “He played a lot of short stick, playing with the pole right now. He’s an impressive athlete and we needed every opportunity and every play that he made today to come out on top.”
For the second straight game, the Gorillas were stout on the defensive end, limiting the Big Green to seven goals and holding them scoreless in two of four quarters after holding Quinnipiac to five goals in its previous game.
“Defense was great,” Cannella said. “Those guys played some real good players in terms of [Swanson, Petito and Chance Cook], those three guys. And [Owen Salanger] holding the line there, well above 50 percent in the save percentage. They all did their job.”
The Minutemen will return to action and conclude its four game homestand on Saturday, Feb. 22 against NJIT. Faceoff is scheduled for 12 p.m.
Marco Lopez can be reached at [email protected].
