Men’s lacrosse has gone on a historic run, and with the amount of goals they’ve scored this season, it seems like the nets have to be replaced at least twice every game. The Beacons recently snapped their six-game winning streak dating back to their match against Norwich on Friday, March 10 after their 23–12 defeat at the hands of the Babson College Beavers on Tuesday, April 4 (1).
Despite the loss, men’s lacrosse had a lot of fun running the score up on their opponents, and their goal scoring abilities are an exciting sight to see, so much so that many would be in awe if they were to go watch them play. Going into their match against Mass Maritime Academy this past weekend, the Beacons had outscored their opponents 221–131 (2), and in their hot streak, they had an absurd goal differential of +120 after they outscored their opponents 161–41 during their stretch of complete dominance.
Among the abundance of notable feats that the Beacons accomplished, there are a few that really stood out. One of them included the fact that they allowed 10 goals or more in just one of their six wins, which came against Fairleigh Dickinson University-Florham when they beat the devil out of the Devils, 23–11 (1).
After their Spring Break trip to Florida with a 3–0 record (1), the Beacons took care of business here too, getting an additional three wins before their winning streak snapped at six. Getting back to New England over break, the Beacons’ slate of games against Plymouth State University, New England College and Salem State University resulted in them leading offensive explosions, with 21–6, 29–7 and 33–2 victories, respectively (1).
Their win against Plymouth State saw them end the game off with 11 unanswered goals; Gavin Admirand led the team in the goal scoring category with six, while Connor Smith and Nolan Beauregard each recorded hat tricks (3). Against New England College and their Pilgrims, Beacon Charlie Chapman had a game high five goals, and the Beacons had three four-goal scorers in Connor Smith, Jacob Banks and Admirand. The team went into halftime holding a massive 22–4 lead, much of which was attributed to their amazing second quarter, where they outscored the Pilgrims 14–1 (4).
Regarding the remarkable feats previously mentioned, their biggest accomplishment was that they made history against Salem State University on Saturday, April 1. They played an April fools’ joke on the Vikings when they led them to believe the game would be competitive. The Beacons went on and raided them with a flawless offensive attack instead; their 33 goals set a new program record in their bombardment. Smith and Admirand recorded five goals each, and Timothy Sullivan recorded the record shattering 31st goal of the game for the Beacons (5).
The goal was not the only record breaker of the day though; not only did the Beacons put up the most goals since the program’s establishment, but they also recorded the largest win margin while doing so, defeating the Vikings by 31 goals (5). With six straight games of masterful lacrosse being played, the team had everything click for them. Although, their recent loss to Babson was a miniscule hiccup in their outstanding season.
Catching up with Smith, Sullivan and Chapman in an interview, they were kind enough to share some comments on their recent stretch of play and shed some light on their game against Babson.
Smith said, “Obviously, Babson’s a really good team, and I think we played really well for a long portion of the game—at least for three quarters. We fell apart a little bit at the end, but if we keep playing like we did against Babson, there’s no reason that we shouldn’t go into the conference and do what we’re supposed to do.”
“We definitely let it get to ourselves, and we beat ourselves,” Sullivan added.
The outcome of the Beacons’ loss against Babson was certainly not reflective of how competitive the team was throughout the match. The Beacons were within striking distance against the Beavers, cutting their deficits to 4–3 and 12–9 at some points, and given their potent offense, had chances to execute on their game plan (6).
Although, Smith hit the nail on the head when he said, “I just think there were times that we could’ve executed better, every single one of us, and there were some times where we could’ve worked together a little bit. We were missing a big guy too, we were missing ‘three,’ and I think that would’ve been a huge asset. But yeah, as long as we continue to play together and make the right decisions like I know we can—like we do in practice every single day—I think we will have our way with a lot of teams, absolutely.” The player Smith is referring to is Chapman, who unfortunately missed the game against Babson but is back with the team now. He also provided some insightful input on the game against the Beavers.
“I wasn’t at the game, but I watched the whole time, and they had them until the third quarter. It’s simple mistakes, and the same thing happened in previous years with MIT and Babson. We can run with those kinds of teams, but it’s just those simple mistakes that kind of hurt us in the long run when it comes down to the third and the fourth quarter,” he said.
Chapman provided a great outlook on what caused the loss against Babson and referenced their performance against MIT earlier this year. In the case of both matches, the Beacons performed well in many areas, but their mistakes added up and proved costly, as Babson was able to run away at the end to put the Beacons out of reach (6), as did the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, despite UMass Boston’s hard-fought showing (7).
In light of their performance against MIT, Sullivan mentioned how there was a shift in play within the team after the game, which translated well in their trip to Florida and their recent win streak—for good reason, too.
“We just had to find our rhythm,” Sullivan said. “There’s a lot of transfers, a lot of new freshmen, it’s pretty much a new team. Everyone’s just trying to find some chemistry, and once we found it, we found a rhythm. And once we learned how each other played, I think we definitely learned from each other as well.”
Chapman bounced off Sullivan’s input and provided his own: “I think [Sullivan] nailed it. It’s just new guys, I mean last year, I was a newer guy and it kind of took me until the fifth or sixth game to get into that rhythm with the guys here from previous years playing offense and all that stuff. And now, we have [Smith] and [Sullivan] and the newer freshmen like [Beauregard], and just figuring out how to get our hands better, we all start moving better when it all comes down to playing.”
Men’s lacrosse’s recent loss to the Beavers is one small fork in the road in the grand scheme of their illustrious season. With only Little East Conference opponents remaining, now is the time when the games matter most, as these games will determine their seeding in the upcoming tournament. Though, with the way things are going for the team, there should be no doubt that the Beacons will stand tall moving forward. It’s time for the team to regroup and showcase the same chemistry they had in their previous six games leading up to the match against Babson, and it seems like they’ve taken strides in doing so. After all, Smith said it best, “As long as we do our thing, I think we’ll do alright […] we’re grinding. We’re grinding every single day.”
1. https://beaconsathletics.com/sports/mens-lacrosse/schedule
2. https://beaconsathletics.com/sports/mens-lacrosse/stats/2023
4. https://beaconsathletics.com/sports/mens-lacrosse/stats/2023/new-england-college/boxscore/5249
7. https://beaconsathletics.com/news/2023/3/2/mens-lacrosse-lacrosse-drops-home-opener-to-mit.aspx