BABSON PARK, Mass.—Junior Christian Brofft (Pottstown, Pa.) scored a career-high five goals and classmate Grey Sunderland (Bellevue, Wash.) won 23-of-31 face-offs to help top-seeded Babson College rally from a six-goal deficit to defeat the fifth-seeded Coast Guard Academy, 15-14, in a New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Tournament semifinal on Thursday night at MacDowell Field.

Babson, which has won three straight games, improves to 11-4 overall and is headed back to the conference tournament final for the second time in three seasons. Coast Guard sees its season come to a close at 6-9 overall.

Graduate student Ryan Kenney (Hingham, Mass.), senior Chi Chi Price (Hingham, Mass.) and Sunderland, who led all players with 17 ground balls, each scored twice for the Beavers. Graduate student Will Spangenberg (Dover, Mass.) and first-year Bennett Smith (Lake Oswego, Ore.) both finished with two assists, junior Dillon Quinn (Spring Lake, N.J.) forced two turnovers and senior Will Parducci (Manhattan Beach, Calif.) made six saves in the victory.

Senior Taylor Gustafson (Littleton, Colo.) led all players with six goals and classmate Caleb Holdridge (Waterford, Conn.) added two goals and a game-high three assists to lead the Bears. Junior Ian Feely (Spring Branch, Texas) and sophomore Ryan Hunter (Bethesda, Md.) both scored twice, Holdridge caused three turnovers and senior Dan Lucas (Weston, Conn.) made 12 saves in the loss.

Down 11-5 early in the third quarter, Price scored back-to-back goals and junior Topher Bower (Chicago, Ill.) converted a feed from Smith to cut the Babson deficit to 11-8 with 8:09 to go in the stanza. Feely stopped the run with his second tally of the night at the 2:43 mark, but Brofft answered just over a minute later and Kenney put away a feed from Spangenberg for a man-up goal with four seconds left in the period to spark a six-goal run.

Brofft notched his fifth goal of the night to pull the Green and White within 12-11 with 12:26 left in the fourth before Spangenberg tied the game less than 90 seconds later. Kenney gave Babson its first lead of the game with 8:41 to go and Sunderland scored his third goal of the season off the face-off just seven seconds later to cap the spurt and give the hosts a 14-12 advantage.

Senior Matt Stucchi (Rexford, N.Y.) answered a goal by Holdridge with a man-up tally to keep the Beavers in front 15-13 with 5:44 to go before the Bears pulled within a goal on first-year Patrick Smith's (Leesburg, Va.) marker with 34.5 seconds remaining. Sophomore Nick Butler (Northport, N.Y.) won the ensuing face-off but Coast Guard was unable to get a potential game-tying shot off as Quinn knocked the ball away from senior Gaige Kruger (Coronado, Calif.) in the waning seconds.

Gustafson opened the scoring with a man-up tally almost six minutes into the game and scored five times in the second quarter to help the Bears build a 10-4 lead with 2:12 to go before halftime.

The Beavers finished with a 53-35 edge in shots and a 38-23 advantage in ground balls. They also scored on 3-of-5 extra-man opportunities.

Babson will host MIT in the NEWMAC Tournament final on Saturday at 1 p.m.

GAME NOTES
• The Beavers are 6-3 all-time against Coast Guard, which includes a pair of NEWMAC Tournament wins over the last three seasons.
• Babson has won consecutive games by a single goal and is now 3-2 this season in games decided by two goals or less.
• Spangenberg is now second on the Beavers' single-season list with 74 points.
• Thursday's win was the first for the Beavers when trailing after three quarters since February 26, 2020, when they defeated Bates in OT, 12-11.