NEWMAC Tournament Semifinal
Men's Lacrosse vs. Coast Guard
Thursday, May 4 | 7:00 p.m.
MacDowell Field | Babson Park, Mass.

WHAT TO KNOW
• Top-seeded Babson will host fifth-seeded Coast Guard in a NEWMAC Tournament semifinal Thursday evening at MacDowell Field.
• The Beavers earned the top seed and home-field advantage throughout the tournament after completing an unbeaten conference regular season slate.

SERIES HISTORY
• Babson is 5-3 all-time against Coast Guard in a series that dates back to 2015.
• The teams have alternated wins and losses over the past four meetings, including the Green and White's 16-8 victory over the Bears back in March in New London, Conn.
• The Beavers have captured just one of the three games in the series played in Babson Park.
• Four of the eight games between the two programs have been decided by three goals or fewer.

LAST MEETING
• Graduate student Ryan Kenney scored a game-high four goals and visiting Babson held Coast Guard scoreless for nearly 36 minutes to start the game on the way to a 16-8 win on March 18, 2023 at Cadet Memorial Field.
• Graduate student Will Spangenberg had three goals and one assist, senior Chi Chi Price scored twice and first-year Bennett Smith chipped in with a pair of tallies to pace the Beavers. Junior Grey Sunderland won 10-of-20 face-offs, classmate Sammy Kalishman scooped up a team-high four ground balls and senior Will Parducci made eight of his 12 saves in the first half.
• Senior Taylor Gustafson scored three times and classmate Caleb Holdridge contributed two goals to lead the Bears' offense. Fellow senior Gunnar Brodfuehrer won 7-of-12 face-offs, sophomore Oliver Bolton tied for game-high honors with four ground balls and senior Dan Lucas made 17 saves in the loss.

SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
• Top-seeded Babson (10-4, 6-0 NEWMAC) wrapped up an unbeaten conference regular season last Saturday with a dramatic 15-14 victory over defending champion MIT.
• Spangenberg caused a turnover, scooped up the loose ball and scored into an open net with a minute to go in the fourth quarter to clinch the win over the Engineers. Price registered career highs with eight goals and 10 points while Kenney scored three goals and Spangenberg contributed two goals and one assist. Junior Dillon Quinn caused four turnovers and collected four ground balls for the defense and Parducci made 14 saves in goal for the Beavers.
• Spangenberg (41-30-71) is ranked 38th in Division III with 5.0 points per game and Price (55-8-63) is 13th in Division III with 3.85 goals per game. Kenney (41-13-54) gives the Beavers three 50-point scorers for the first time in program history.
• Sunderland has won .55.7 percent of his face-offs (176-of-316) and has scooped up 118 ground balls, and Quinn leads the defense with 27 ground balls and 19 caused turnovers. Parducci (11.28 GAA, .544 sv. pct) leads the NEWMAC in goals against average and ranks third in save percentage.

SCOUTING THE BEARS
• Fifth-seeded Coast Guard (6-8, 2-4 NEWMAC) advanced to the semifinals with an 18-5 victory over fourth-seeded Clark in a quarterfinal contest Tuesday evening in Worcester, Mass.
• After falling behind 4-0 in the first 14 minutes, the Bears dominated the remainder of the game with a 10-0 second quarter and seven of the eight goals in the second half. Holdridge tallied four goals and four assists, Gustafson and junior Ian Feely scored four goals each, and sophomore Ryan Hunter had three goals and an assist. Lucas made 19 saves in goal for the Bears, who were outshot 17-4 in the opening frame.
• Holdridge (21-22-43) is fourth in the NEWMAC in assists and Gustafson (32-8-40) is eighth in the conference in goals. The Bears also get offense from senior Gaige Kruger (21-9-30), Hunter (21-6-27) and Feely (22-3-25). Junior Wyatt Rumpf is 75-of-175 on faceoffs.
• Bolton has team-highs of 27 caused turnovers and 51 ground balls. Lucas (12.35 GAA, .562 sv. pct) has started all 14 games for the Bears and is third in the league in save percentage.

POST-SEASON HISTORY
• The Beavers are competing in the semifinals for the eighth time in the nine tournaments since the NEWMAC began sponsoring men's lacrosse in 2014, having gone 4-3 in the previous seven.
• Babson also played in 13 straight Pilgrim League semifinal games from 2001-13 and advanced to the final in 2011 and 2013.
• The Green and White claimed the program's first NEWMAC tournament championship in 2021, which put an end to its 42-year NCAA Tournament drought.

RECENT HISTORY
• The Green and White defeated Coast Guard 15-7 in the 2021 final in its only previous tournament matchup against the Bears.
• Fourth-seeded Babson nearly upset top-seeded MIT in last year's semifinal before the host Engineers pulled out a 12-10 victory.

POSTSEASON TRENDS
• Babson is 6-1 all-time when scoring 12 or more goals in the conference playoffs, which includes 2021 victories over Clark in the semifinals (13-8) and Coast Guard in the final (15-7) and last year's quarterfinal win over Emerson (15-11).
• Each of the Beavers' last three NEWMAC Tournament losses have come by one or two goals. Prior to last year's 12-10 loss at MIT, they fell to Clark 10-9 in a 2019 quarterfinal and suffered a 12-11 OT setback in a 2018 semifinal at Springfield.

PRICE REPEATS AS NEWMAC ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
• For the second straight week, Price was selected as the NEWMAC Offensive Athlete of the Week on Monday.
• Price scored a career-high eight goals and added two assists for 10 points to help Babson defeat MIT, 15-14. He scored three goals apiece in both the first and third quarters and notched the game-tying marker with 6:54 to go in the fourth.

REGION I RANKINGS
• Babson is sixth in the latest NCAA Region I rankings, which were released last week.
• In addition to a win over No. 7 Trinity, the Beavers have lost to No. 2 Middlebury, No. 3 Williams and No. 5 Bowdoin by a combined five goals.

BALL SECURITY
• The Beavers rank seventh in Division III converting .899 percent of its clearing opportunities and are committing just 15.36 turnovers per game, which ranks eighth nationally in fewest turnovers.

MAKING A MARK ON THE RECORD BOOKS
• Spangenberg's 71 points are third on Babson's single-season list and he is just two away from matching PJ Yeatman's '92 total of 73 back in 1991.
• Price's 55 goals are second only to Josh Shaffer '95, who scored 71 times back in 1995. Price is also climbing the Babson career charts , moving up to ninth all-time with 112 goals and 13th with 130 points.
• Sunderland's 118 ground balls mark a career high and rank third in program history for a single-season and his 278 career GB's is the most since the school began tracking ground balls in 1998.
• Sunderland's 176 face-off wins is fourth in program history for a single season and his .557 winning percentage in currently seventh-best in a season. He ranks second on the Babson cumulative list since 2008 with 453 career faceoff wins and a .566 face-off winning percentage

BUSY BEAVERS
• Spangenberg has scored at least one goal in 17 straight games and recorded at least at point in 21 games in a row, both streaks going back to his career at Holy Cross in 2022.
• Price has scored at least one goal in 19 consecutive games going back to last season and has scored at least three goals in six in a row and 10 of his last 12 outings.
• Parducci had made double-digit saves in 10 of his 14 games this spring.

NUMBERS TO KNOW
• Babson is 10-0 this season and has won 24 straight games since the start of 2020 when taking a lead into the fourth quarter.
• The Beavers are 10-3 this season when scoring at least 10 goals, 18-7 since last year and 25-7 over the last four seasons with double-digit scoring.
• Babson is 27-3 when allowing eight goals or fewer going back to the start of 2018.

UP NEXT
• The winner of Thursday's semifinal game will advance to the championship game against the winner of the other semifinal which features third-seeded MIT at second-seeded Springfield. The highest remaining seed will host the title game on Saturday.