MIDDLEBURY, Vt.—Senior Chi Chi Price (Hingham, Mass.) finished with four goals and two assists and visiting Babson College led for much of the first three quarters of the contest before falling to No. 5/5 Middlebury College 18-15 in non-conference men's lacrosse action on Sunday afternoon at Youngman Field at Alumni Stadium.

With the loss, Babson dips to 8-4 on the year, while Middlebury improves to 12-1 with its fifth consecutive victory.

Graduate student Ryan Kenney (Hingham, Mass.), senior Matt Stucchi (Rexford, N.Y.) and juniors Jacob Tauss (San Marcos, Calif.) and Dillon Quinn (Spring Lake, N.J.) all scored twice for the Beavers. Fellow junior Topher Bower (Chicago, Ill.) contributed a goal and three assists, classmate Grey Sunderland (Bellevue, Wash.) won 19-of-36 face-offs and scooped up a game-high 11 ground balls, and senior Will Parducci (Manhattan Beach, Calif.) made 12 saves in the loss.

First-year Cooper DeMallie (Ridgewood, N.J.) led all players with six goals, while sophomores Russell Thorndike (Brookline, Mass.) and Patrick Jamin (Rumson, N.J.) both scored twice for the Panthers. Sophomore William Munroe (Wayland, Mass.) won 10-of-18 face-offs, first-year Drew Dummer (Dover, Mass.) led all players with four caused turnovers and first-year Hayden Kern (Austin, Texas) stopped eight shots in the win.

The Green and White got a pair of goals from Quinn and built a 4-0 lead on Stucchi's first tally of the afternoon with 7:33 to go in the opening quarter. Price struck for back-to-back man-up markers just over a minute apart and Tauss buried a feed from Kenney to give the Beavers their largest lead of the afternoon at 7-2 with 1:39 to go in the first.

DeMallie scored three times during a four-goal spurt to pull Middlebury within 7-6 with 6:08 to go in the second, but Bower stopped the run at the 2:28 mark and then set up Price's third tally of the half to help Babson take a 9-7 advantage into halftime. Christian Broftt (Pottstown, Pa.) pushed the Babson lead to 11-8 midway through the third before the Panthers went on a 7-1 run over the next 11-plus minutes.

DeMallie sandwiched a pair of scores around a goal by Kenney to tie the game at 12 with 2:34 to go in the third and senior Will Zink (Dover, Mass.) gave Middlebury its first lead 31 seconds later. Senior Tom Conley (Mamaroneck, N.Y.), who assisted on Zink's tally, scored with 0:02 to go in the stanza and classmate Jack Sheehan (New York, N.Y.) notched his first goal of the day to start the fourth as the hosts pushed their advantage to 15-12 with 11:05 remaining.

Babson cut its deficit to two twice over the final six-plus minutes but Middlebury killed off an offside penalty with 3:02 to play and Jamin scored both his goals over the final 85 seconds to put the game away.

Both teams return to action next Saturday as Babson hosts Wheaton at 3:30 p.m., while Middlebury travels to Amherst at 1 p.m.

GAME NOTES
• The Beavers are 0-4 all-time against Middlebury although the teams have met just twice since 1983.
• Babson is 0-3 this spring against nationally-ranked opponents with the games having been decided by a total of just nine goals.
• The Beavers, who entered the weekend ranked first in Division III in fewest turnovers and clearing percentage, committed a season-high 22 miscues and went 19-of-28 on clears.
• Sunday's result marked just the second time in 24 games that Babson has lost when leading at halftime going back to the start of the 2020 campaign.