The UMass Boston lacrosse team had a couple of huge games this past week as the Little East Conference tournament went underway on Thursday. Just a quick reminder that a season ago, the Beacons had a tremendous regular season going undefeated and carried that to a conference championship. This season, the Beacons were undefeated against the conference looking to repeat as conference champions.
The semifinal game came on Thursday when the Beacons went up against Massachusetts Maritime Academy. These two teams met one month ago and it is safe to say the Beacons absolutely dominated. After Mass Maritime tied the game at 4–4 late in the first quarter, the Beacons went on to score eight unanswered goals, going into halftime to take over the game. The final score in this game would wind up being 20–9 in favor of UMass Boston.
Things started a bit shaky for the Beacons as Mass Maritime took an early 2–0 lead. The Beacons would battle back, but the opposition continued their offensive push as the first quarter ended 9–6 in favor of Mass Maritime. UMass Boston responded with a strong second quarter, getting it back to an even 13–13 score at the half. The rest of the game was tight as both teams buckled down as the score was 20–20 as the final minutes dwindled. With just 10 seconds remaining in the game, Charlie Chapman put the Beacons ahead, guaranteeing another trip to the conference finals for UMass Boston.
The conference championship game would come on Saturday as the Beacons would face the two seeded Keene State College. The last time the Beacons played Keene State College, the Beacons won by a narrow deficit as the game ended by a score of 14–13. Now almost a month later, these two teams would meet again for much higher stakes.
It’s safe to say this game was a back and forth affair as both teams traded goals in the first quarter to make it 2–2 at the end of one. The Beacons took control in the second quarter taking a 5–2 lead, but the Owls scored two unanswered goals to make it a 5–4 game going into halftime. Things got a lot more interesting in the second half as offense was hard to come by. There were a combined three goals scored in the second half, as the Owls scored twice in the fourth quarter to send the game into overtime. If you thought offense was hard to come by in regulation, overtime brought it to another whole level. After four overtime periods and 16 shots in overtime alone, Luke Murphy finally scored the game-winning goal with 1:37 remaining in the fourth overtime period to give UMass Boston another LEC championship.
Now that the Beacons have won the LEC championship, they will have to wait to see who they will be facing in the Division III NCAA tournament. They will be finding out their opponent Sunday night when the NCAA selects the first round matchups. A season ago the Beacons had a very rough first round game against SUNY Cortland, as UMass Boston was defeated by a score of 24–6.
