BABSON PARK, Mass.— Graduate student Jared Rainville (Watertown, Conn.) and first-year Luke Wang (Simsbury, Conn.) combined for 11 goals and a pair of assists and graduate student James Turco (Woodbury, N.Y.) and senior Grey Sunderland (Bellevue, Wash.) combined to win 24-of-33 face-offs as No. 10/13 and top-seeded Babson College rolled past fourth-seeded Wheaton College, 24-7, in a New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) men's lacrosse tournament semifinal on Thursday evening at MacDowell Field.

With their 13th win in their last 14 games, the Beavers improve to 14-3 overall, set a program record for victories in a season, and advance to their second straight NEWMAC final and third in four years. Wheaton lost for the fourth time in its last five games to wind up its season at 9-8 overall.

Rainville matched his season high with seven goals and added an assist while Wang scored four goals in addition to one helper for the Beavers. Senior Topher Bower (Chicago, lll.) was good for two goals and two assists, classmate Connor Karsh (Glenview, Ill.) notched three goals, and senior Jacob Tauss (San Marcos, Calif.) and first-year Rowan Mondello (Wakefield, Mass.) chipped in with two goals and an assist each. Turco won 14-of-18 face-offs and scooped up 10 ground balls and Sunderland captured 10-of-15 draws with nine GBs in the win.

Graduate student Chip Quinn (Catonsville, Md.) led the defense with three caused turnovers and four ground balls. Senior Bryan Hanley (Plainview, N.Y. ) made five saves in 52 minutes before graduate student Randy Castle (Boxford, Mass. ) made a pair of stops in the last eight minutes in his Babson debut.

Junior Charlie Racine (Oradell, N.J.) provided the highlights for the visitors with four goals and six ground balls, while sophomore Emmett Edwards (Sunderland, Vt.) scored twice and junior Charlie Goodrich (Fairfield, Conn.) added a goal and an assist. Senior Jacob Wharton (Worcester, Mass.) and sophomore Jack Walter (Westfield, N.J.) each caused two turnovers and picked up two ground balls, and juniors Connor Almstrom (Cumberland, R.I.) and John Drew (North Andover, Mass.) each made eight saves in 30 minutes of action between the pipes in the loss.

After the teams traded a pair of early first-quarter goals, Rainville and Wang went back-to-back just 33 seconds apart as the Beavers took a 3-1 lead. Edwards got one back for Wheaton with 3:49 on the clock to pull to within one, but the hosts rattled off four goals in the final two minutes of the frame, one each by Tauss, Rainville, Bower and junior Ford Carney (Garden City, N.Y.), to take a 7-2 lead after one.

Wheaton scored a pair of man-up goals to start the second quarter, one each from Edwards and Racine and both assisted by Mike McLaughlin (Stoughton, Mass.), but Babson answered with three in a row in a four-minute stretch as the lead went back up to 10-4. The teams alternated goals for the next five minutes as the Lyons hung around and trailed by only five goals, 11-6, with 3:25 to go in the second.

It was all Babson the rest of the way though, as the Beavers scored five straight goals to end the second frame and four more for most of the third quarter as the lead grew to 20-6. Rainville had four goals in that stretch and Wang added a pair. Racine stopped the bleeding with four seconds to go in the third but that ended up being the final Wheaton goal and Babson tacked on four goals in the final stanza.

Babson finished with a 63-30 advantage in shots and doubled up the Lyons in ground balls, 54-27, and the Green and White had the dominating 25-9 margin in face-offs.
The Beavers will host second-seeded Springfield in the championship game on Saturday at 5 p.m. at MacDowell Field. The Pride knocked off third-seeded MIT in Thursday's other semifinal, 18-14, in Springfield.

GAME NOTES
• Babson has won 14 in a row against Wheaton and leads the Lyons 31-9 in the all-time series that dates back to 1992.
• The 24 goals for Babson are a season high and the most since a 25-8 victory over Wheaton on April 22, 2023.
• The Beavers are 8-0 at MacDowell Field this season and have won 12 in a row at home going back to last season.
• Rainville, who upped his season totals to 68 goals and 90 points, ranks second on the Babson single-season scoring list, trailing only the 71 goals and 102 points accumulated by Josh Shaffer in 1995.
• Babson's 14 wins this season are a program record, surpassing the 13-5 records in 2001 and 2023.