For the second consecutive season, the Brown Bears defeated the No. 17 Massachusetts men’s lacrosse team in the most chaotic of fashions. The Minutemen (7-2) lost their first game since the season opener and watched their seven-game win streak get abruptly dismantled.
Brown (3-5) took a timeout with 19 seconds left with the score tied at seven apiece in an attempt to set up its final attack. The initial play was broken up, as Bears attacker Marcus Wertheim’s pass attempt was thwarted by the long pole of Zach Auble. The ensuing bounce ever so fortunately got into the strings of Jeremy Hopsicker’s stick as the clock neared its expiration. With eight seconds remaining, Brown’s junior attacker rifled a low shovel shot into the back of the net to secure the dramatic victory.
After a slow start to the contest, UMass woke up offensively and carried a 7-5 lead into the final 15 minutes. In the fourth quarter, nearly everything the nationally ranked team has excelled at in the first half of the season fell by the wayside. The Gorillas have been an exceptional clear team, but successfully cleared the ball just 50 percent of the time in the period. They turned the ball over seven times in the fourth, many times unforced, a number they have not touched in a quarter across the last seven games.
Star scorer Trace Hogan was held goalless for the first time in his career as a Minuteman. It was abundantly clear that the Bears watched film on him and entered the game with a game plan to bracket the previous team leader in scoring. The senior still found a way to contribute with three assists, but his frustration was apparent.
Despite the difficult game, Hogan had an opportunity to be the hero. With just over one minute left, UMass embarked on a minute-long man-up after a major tripping penalty was assessed to Brown’s Samari Staten. Hogan caught a pass in his usual spot on the left side of the field, though the angle was tight and the man-up was young. He opted for a sidearm shot that was routinely caught by opposing goalie Connor Foley. The Minutemen were never afforded another real chance and finished with zero goals in the fourth quarter.
One year ago to the day, UMass fell 11-10 to the Bears after a Caleb Hammett goal was overturned due to an illegal stick violation. The 2025 edition of the now 23-game all-time series, which sits at 13-10 in favor of the Gorillas, felt eerily similar.
One of the defining moments of the game saw Aiden Drunsic score a ridiculous over-the-head goal while facing the opposite direction he was shooting. The referees deemed the audacious effort to be mere hundredths of a second late of beating the shot clock. If the release came a beat sooner, the Minutemen would have earned their first three-goal lead of the game, but they ultimately failed to score again after that point.
Drunsic scored a hat trick in the loss, marking his second time doing so in the past three games. He took advantage of Brown’s focus on the other UMass attackers. At the conclusion of the first quarter, the Exeter, New Hampshire native showed extreme resilience. He was tripped up by the stick of a defender, forcing him to his knees. He got back on his feet, reversed the ball onto his strong side and turned the ball home for his team’s first tally of the afternoon.
Freshman Robbie Granara scored on two occasions, which places him in the top spot on the roster in terms of goal-scoring. He grew his season total to 21 with the two-goal performance. Fellow freshman Owen Salanger did everything in his power to keep the game close, making a career-high 16 saves in net. Hogan sits one goal behind Granara with 20, while Drunsic is up to 16 goals with his recent run of form. The trio has been prolific all season, but on this day, they couldn’t give the Minutemen their all-important eighth goal. In fact, the team failed to score at all in the closing 25 minutes of the matchup.
Prior to the loss, UMass sat at No. 13 in the NCAA’s Rating Percentage Index (RPI) metric thanks to a 7-1 record that was one of the best in Division I. This loss will certainly hamper that number and will likely pull the Minutemen out of the rankings altogether. The stats show that the Bears are much better than their record, as they sit at No. 37 of 77 in the RPI.
The home test against Brown was the final non-conference game of UMass’ 2025 regular season schedule. The Minutemen will look to right the ship as they begin Atlantic 10 play against No. 19 Saint Joseph’s on Saturday, March 29. Faceoff is set for 12 p.m. in Philadelphia.
Cameron Pellegrino can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @cam_pellegrino.
