Men's Lacrosse vs. MIT
NEWMAC Tournament Final
Saturday, May 6 | 1 p.m.
MacDowell Field | Babson Park, Mass.

WHAT TO KNOW
• The last two NEWMAC Tournament champions will meet at MacDowell Field with the winner earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

SERIES HISTORY
• Babson is 31-16 all-time against MIT in a series that dates back to 197.
• The Beavers have won 10 of the last 13 games between the teams and seven of the last eight contests between the Beavers and Engineers have been decided by three goals or fewer.
• The Green and White has won 12 consecutive games against MIT at home going back to 2002 although last Saturday's matchup was the first between the squads in Babson Park since 2018.

POSTSEASON HISTORY
• Babson is 3-1 all-time against MIT in the NEWMAC playoffs with all four previous meetings coming in the semifinals.
• Three of the four contests have been decided by two goals or fewer, which includes the Engineers' 12-10 victory over the Beavers in last year's semifinals in Cambridge.

LAST MEETING
• Senior Chi Chi Price finished with a career-high eight goals and graduate student Will Spangenberg forced a turnover and notched the game-winning tally with 62 seconds remaining as the Beavers edged MIT 15-14 last Saturday in Babson Park.
• Graduate student Ryan Kenney had three goals and junior Dillon Quinn caused four turnovers for the Beavers, who finished with a 44-28 edge in ground balls.
• Graduate student Ryan Gebhardt scored six goals and junior Heath Nilsen added two goals and one assist for the Engineers, who took a 14-13 lead with 7:43 remaining.

SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
• Top-seeded Babson (11-4) punched its ticket to its second NEWMAC Tournament final with a 15-14 come-from-behind win over fifth-seeded Coast Guard in Thursday's semifinals.
• Junior Christian Brofft finished with a career-high five goals, classmate Grey Sunderland won 23-of-31 face-offs and Kenney scored twice during the decisive six-goal run as the Beavers rallied from an 11-5 deficit early in the third quarter.
• Spangenberg (42-32-74) leads the conference in assists and ranks second in points, Price (57-9-66) is second in the league averaging 3.87 goals per game and Kenney (42-11-53) is tied for third in the NEWMAC in goals.
• Sunderland ranks second in the conference in both face-off winning percentage (.571) and ground balls (135), Quinn leads the defense with 30 ground balls and 21 caused turnovers and senior Will Parducci boasts a league-best 11.47 goals against average and a .530 save percentage while making 12.33 saves per game.

SCOUTING THE ENGINEERS
• Second-seeded MIT (12-5) avenged one of its two regular season conference losses with a 14-8 win at Springfield on Thursday night in the semifinals.
• First-year Zach Bleil and sophomore Dylan Nelson both scored three goals and fellow sophomore Matthew Sardis won 23-of-25 face-offs and scooped up 19 ground balls for the Engineers, who jumped out to a 10-3 halftime lead and put the game away with a late four-goal run.
• Gebhardt (76-33-109), who was held without a point for just the second time in two seasons on Thursday, ranks in the top five in Division III in goals and points, Nilsen (28-22-50) has produced eight goals and 15 points over the last three games and first-year Bryce Metalios (33-10-43) is ninth in the league in goals.
• Sardis ranks fourth in Division III in ground balls per game (11.65) and seventh in face-off winning percentage (.691), senior Chris Perrino leads the defense with 52 ground balls and 28 caused turnovers and classmate Dylan McCabe owns a 12.27 goals against average and a .435 save percentage in 17 starts.

"X" FACTOR
• The league's top two face-off specialists played to a draw last Saturday as both Sunderland and Sardis both won 15 face-offs.
• Sunderland has won .655 percent of his face-offs over the last six games and the Beavers are 8-2 on the year this season when winning at least half with their only losses coming to No. 16/17 Williams (11-10) on April 8 and at fifth-ranked Middlebury (18-15) on April 16.

SHOT AT THE TITLE
• Babson will make its eighth conference championship game appearance between the NEWMAC and Pilgrim League since 2001 on Saturday.
• The Beavers broke through for their first tournament championship with a 15-7 win at Coast Guard in 2021 and will host the conference final on MacDowell Field for the first time since a 2015 loss to Springfield on Saturday.

POSTSEASON TRENDS
• Babson is 7-1 all-time in conference tournament play when scoring at least 12 goals.
• Five of the Beavers' last 10 NEWMAC Tournament games have been decided by one or two goals.
• The regular season champion and top seed has captured just three of the last seven NEWMAC Tournament titles since 2015 – MIT (2022) and Springfield (2017, 2018).

PRICE IS RIGHT
• After earning his second consecutive NEWMAC Offensive Player of the Week award on Monday, Price was named to the USILA Division III Team of the Week on Tuesday.
• 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 eighth in Division III converting .897 percent of their clearing opportunities and are committing just 16.13 turnovers per game, which is good for the 12th fewest in the country.

MAKING A MARK ON THE RECORD BOOKS
• Spangenberg's 74 points are second on Babson's single-season list behind only Josh Shaffer '95, who put up a school-record 102 in 1995.
• Price's 57 goals are second only to Shaffer's 71 in 1995 and his 114 career tallies rank ninth in program history.
• Sunderland's 135 ground balls have him in second place on Babson's single-season list behind only Christian Ebert '11, who collected 146 in 2010.
• Parducci's 185 saves are tied for eighth in single-season school history and his 11 wins are tied for second behind only John Schmidt '99, who won 12 games in 1999.

NUMBERS TO KNOW
• Babson's 11 wins are tied for the program's most since 2002 and are two shy of the single-season record of 13 achieved back in 2001.
• The Beavers are 8-1 when winning the ground ball battle.
• The Green and White is 8-2 when forcing at least eight turnovers.
• Babson is 10-0 this season and has won its last 24 games when leading after three quarters.
• The Beavers are 3-2 this spring in games decided by two goals or less.

LOOKING AHEAD
• The winner of Saturday's contest will find out where it is headed for the NCAA Tournament when the pairings are announced on Sunday at 9 p.m.