ROCHESTER, N.Y.—Senior goalkeeper Mac Mowat (Bellevue, Wash.) made a career-high 29 saves as 20th-ranked Babson College suffered a 16-7 loss to No. 1/1 Tufts University in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday afternoon at Growney Stadium.

Babson, which was making its first NCAA appearance since 1979, ends the season at 5-1. Tufts improved to 7-0 and will face No. 8/8 St. John Fisher in Saturday's second round.

Graduate student Sean Smith (Pasadena, Calif.) and sophomore Chi Chi Price (Hingham, Mass.) both scored twice for the Beavers. Senior Will Messner (North Kingstown, R.I.) dished out two assists, classmate Jack Tague (Fairfield, Conn.) led all players with three caused turnovers and first-year Grey Sunderland (Bellevue, Wash.) won 12-of-25 faceoffs and scooped up a game-high 10 ground balls.

Mowat, who came into the game with 35 saves over his first five starts this spring, stopped 11 shots in the opening quarter and turned away 16 first-half shots for Babson.

Junior Cam Kelleher (Longmeadow, Mass.) scored four times, classmate Mac Bredahl (Chatham, N.J.) finished with two goals and four assists and senior Max Waldbaum (Denver, Colo.) added two goals and three assists for the Jumbos, who were held to their lowest scoring output of the season against a Division III opponent. Senior Joe Theuer (Los Angeles, Calif.) finished with 16 saves in the victory.

Sophomore Lane McCarty (Bloomsbury, N.J.) and Bredahl scored 57 seconds apart to give Tufts and early 2-0 lead but first-year Connor Karsh (Glenview, Ill.) and junior Peter Chisholm (Westford, Mass.) responded with back-to-back tallies to pull the Green and White even with 7:01 to go in the opening quarter. Smith stopped a three-goal Jumbos' run with the first of his two goals to make it 5-3 at 12:57 of the second, but Bredahl scored once and set up markers by senior Bryce Adam (Newton, Mass.) and sophomore Kurt Bruun (Chevy Chase, Md.) over the final 4:19 of the period to stretch the margin to 9-4 at the half.

Smith converted a feed from Messner on the opening possession of the third quarter to get Babson within 9-5, but the Tufts defense buckled down and held the Beavers scoreless for a stretch of more than 18 minutes to pull away. Kelleher scored twice during a four-goal run that made it 13-5 just over three minutes into the fourth quarter before Price notched a man-up tally to cut the deficit to 13-6 with 11:15 to go in the contest.

Waldbaum scored his second goal of the day at the 9:46 mark and sophomore Jack Boyden (Toronto, Ontario) tallied his first goal before setting up another goal just over a minute later to give the Jumbos their biggest lead of the afternoon at 16-6 with 5:29 remaining. Babson senior Mason O'Hanlon (Manhattan Beach, Calif.) scored off a feed from classmate John Calicchio (Gulfstream, Fla.) in the closing seconds for the final margin.

GAME NOTES
• The Beavers are 4-12 all-time against Tufts although Saturday's matchup was the first between the teams since 2013 and just the fifth this decade.
• Mowat's 29 saves are tied for the fifth most by a Division III goalie this season and are the most by a Babson player going at least a decade.
• Smith and Price both recorded multi-goal games in all three of Babson's postseason contests.
• Sunderland's 10 ground balls were a season high.