Men’s lacrosse wins CBB, defeats Bates

 

 

The Colby College men’s lacrosse team won the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin (CBB) title for the second time in four years and received big games from Austin Sayre and Tyler Will in a 12-9 victory over Bates College on Wednesday at Bill Alfond Field.

 

The Mules last defeated Bates and Bowdoin College in the same season in 2011. Colby won 11-7 at Bowdoin on April 8.

 

Colby moved to 7-7 overall and finished 4-6 in NESCAC play heading into Saturday’s league quarterfinal game at top-seeded Tufts. The Mules had already earned the eighth seed in the playoffs before the game with Bates. The league playoffs will be announced Wednesday night after all games are completed.

 

Wednesday’s contest also marked the 1st Annual Flahive-McDuffee Memorial Game in honor of Derrik Flahive (Colby) and Morgan McDuffee (Bates). Flahive died in a drowning accident in 2011, while McDuffee was killed while breaking up a fight in Lewiston in 2002. Colby head coach Jack Sandler played with McDuffee under current Bates head coach Peter Lasagna.

 

Sayre finished with six goals and one assist while sparking Colby’s comeback from a 9-6 deficit. Meanwhile, Will stopped 19 shots on the other end of the field after missing the last game due to illness.

 

Bates had leads of 5-2 and 9-6 in a game of scoring runs. The Bobcats trailed 6-5 at halftime after the Mules scored four straight goals to end the half.

 

Bates took over the game in the first 12 minutes of the third quarter. The Bobcats received four straight unassisted goals from Jack Allard, Jake Walsh, Allard with another goal, and Jack Strain with the final tally with 2:44 remaining in the quarter.

 

Colby, though, started a 6-0 scoring run to end the game with three goals in a span of 42 seconds. Sayre scored on a long shot with 1:37 to play and then scored again after the Mules’ Austin Frank won the face-off. Sayre took a pass from Buddy Reed for the goal with 1:20 remaining. Colby tied it at 9-9 just 25 seconds later when Mark Philipps scored off a pass from defender Kenny Jacobson.

 

Derek Youngman, who had three goals on the day, scored the game-winner with 12:45 remaining in the fourth quarter from Brendan McNeill.

 

The Mules went up 11-9 when Sayre turned after trying to make a rush on the right side and found Garen Fabian open outside. Fabrian immediately ripped a long shot for a big insurance goal. Sayre closed out the scoring with 3:15 to play on another long shot. Sayre has a team-best 33 goals and 11 assists for 44 points in his first year.

 

Bates (4-9 overall, 1-9 NESCAC) had good starts to each half. The Bobcats were 3-0 after the first quarter on a man-up goal by Allard (assist Conor Henrie), an unassisted goal from Ken O’Friel with 5:59 left, and a score from Wes Shrewsbury from Tucker White with 1:33 to go.

 

The teams traded goals before Colby went on the late 4-0 scoring run to end the half. Youngman put the Mules on the scoreboard with 13:42 to halftime, but Bates again went up by three when Evan Chen scored on a rush up the field.

 

Reed cut the margin to 4-2 with 7:54 remaining, only to have the Bobcats go up 5-2 with a man-up goal from Kyle Weber off a pass from Charlie Hildebrand.

 

In the final 4:22 of the half, Sayre completely took over the game. He scored three straight goals to tie the game — the first off a pass from McNeill, the second from Phil Champoux, and the third on an unassisted goal with 2:09 left. Youngman put the Mules up at half with just 12.7 seconds left from John Grimaldi.

 

Colby’s other individual key effort came from face-off man Austin Frank, who was 16-for-20 in face-offs and scooped seven ground balls. He pushed his face-off percentage to 66 percent and is at 107 ground balls this season.

 

All four of Colby’s seniors had a nice effort in the win. Reed had a goal, an assist, one caused turnover, and one ground ball. Russ Wilson finished with a team-best two caused turnovers and two ground balls, Champoux had his assist, and Ian Boldt had two ground balls.

 

Jacobson added three ground balls and one caused turnover to go with his assist for Colby. Sayre also had three ground balls.

 

O’Friel and Fred Ulbrick both had two caused turnovers and three ground balls for Bates. Allard had a team-best four ground balls.

 

Will made 14 of his 19 saves in the second half, with seven saves in each quarter. Bates goalie Joe Faria also played well and made 11 stops.