No. 17/13 Men's Lacrosse vs. Williams
Saturday, March 1 | 1:00 p.m.
MacDowell Field | Babson Park, Mass.

SERIES HISTORY
• Babson is 1-3 all-time against Williams with all four meetings coming over the last three seasons and two of Williams' wins coming by just one goal.
• The two teams faced off twice in 2023, with the Ephs taking the regular season game and the Beavers winning an NCAA tournament contest in Rochester N.Y., 16-10.
• Williams won the only previous game in Babson Park, 11-10, on April 8, 2023. 

LAST MEETING
• Calvin Caputo '24 and senior Matthew Johnson scored back-to-back goals less than a minute apart in a seesaw fourth quarter and No. 18 Williams held on for a dramatic 14-13 victory over No. 20/19 Babson on March 2, 2024 at Farley-Lamb Field in Williamstown.
• Sophomore Seamus Rooney scored four goals and graduate student Topher Bower (2g, 2a) added four points of his own for the Beavers. Jared Rainville M'24 and grad student Jacob Tauss contributed two goals and an assist apiece and junior Luke D'Orsi added two goals. Bryan Hanley '24 and senior Alex Fascilla combined for 16 saves in the Beaver goal.
• Caputo finished with eight goals to lead the Ephs, while senior Harrison Cross tallied two goals and an assist. Johnson added two scores and junior Ian Kim scooped up seven ground balls. Senior Matt Wetmore made 17 saves in the win for the hosts.

SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
• Babson, ranked 17th in Division III by the US Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) and 13th by USA Lacrosse Magazine, improved to 2-0 on the season with a dramatic 11-9 victory over No. 19/20 Union (N.Y.) last Saturday at MacDowell Field, the first triumph in 17 career meetings against the Garnet Chargers.
• Sophomores Cooper Chapman and Anthony Stillwell scored the only goals of the fourth quarter to secure the win in a game that included three lead changes and seven tie scores. Stillwell finished with a team-high four goals while sophomore Camden Matthews scored twice and Rooney and senior Riley Shaw chipped in with a goal and an assist each. Graduate transfer Tripp Clark led the defense with four caused turnovers and seven ground balls and Fascilla made 15 saves between the pipes.
• Matthews (6-0-6) and Rooney (3-3-6) have the early team scoring lead through two games, along with Stillwell (5-0-5) and junior Bennett Smith (3-1-4). Junior Will Reading is 19-of-39 at the faceoff X and has picked up 10 ground balls. Clark has team highs of seven caused turnovers and 16 ground balls and fellow graduate student Sammy Kalishman has scooped up seven ground balls.
• Fascilla has an impressive 7.46 goals against average and a .611 save percentage in goal.

SCOUTING THE EPHS
• Williams (0-0) is coming off a season that saw the Ephs finish 9-7 overall and 6-4 in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) before falling in the conference tournament quarterfinals.
• The Ephs return 25 veterans from last year's team, which finished .500 or above in the NESCAC for the fifth straight season. The offense will have to overcome the graduation of three of the top four scorers, but key returnees include junior Will Doran (20-18-38) and Johnson (15-6-21). Top faceoff man Kim is back after winning 123-of-279 at the center X.
• Juniors Drew Nicholson (17 CT, 38 GB) and Aidan Housenbold (14 CT, 36 GB) are key returnees on defense, along with senior Eddie Lloyd (12 CT, 28 GB).
• Wetmore started all 16 games in goal last spring for the Ephs, posting an 11.89 goals against average and a .527 save percentage with 212 saves in the crease. 

BEAVERS RECEIVE WEEKLY HONORS
• After defeating Union for the first time in program history, two Babson players were on the receiving end of NEWMAC and USILA weekly honors.
• Fascilla, a third-team All-America last season, made 15 saves and shut out Union in the fourth quarter and was named NEWMAC Defensive Athlete of the Week, his first of the season and fourth of his career.
• Clark, a first-team All-America at St. Lawrence last spring, finished with seven ground balls, four caused turnovers and one assist to claim a spot on the USILA Team of the Week for the second week in a row.

FRIENDLY CONFINES
• Babson is off to a 2-0 start at MacDowell Field after going 9-0 at home last season.
• The Beavers are 18-2 at home going back to the start of the 2023 campaign.
• The Green and White have won 15 in a row at home since an 11-10 setback to Williams back on April 8, 2023, a span of 694 days.
• The 15-game streak is tied for the second-longest home winning streak in Division III behind only Illinois Wesleyan's 18 straight victories. 

NATIONAL POLLS
• The Beavers moved up one spot after last week's win over a ranked opponent to 17th by the USILA and 13th by USA Lacrosse magazine.
• Babson has been ranked in 12 straight editions of the USILA Division III poll going back to March 11 of last season, and have been ranked in every USA Lacrosse Magazine poll since March 25, 2024. 

BABSON VS. THE NESCAC
• Saturday's game is the first of four contests this season against schools from the NESCAC.
• The Beavers were 2-2 against NESCAC opponents last year, defeating No. 6/5 Middlebury and No. 9/9 Bowdoin but falling to No. 19 Williams and No. 4 Tufts.
• The Green and White, which are 4-5 against the NESCAC going back to 2023, are slated to face No. 9/12 Middlebury on March 18, No. 8/7 Bowdoin on March 26, and No. 1/1 Tufts on April 15.

STREAKING BEAVERS
• Bower picked up an assist in the second quarter against Union to extend his point streak to 34 games going back to March of 2023.
• Smith has at least one point in eight straight outings but sophomore Luke Wang had his points streak stopped at 14 games.

NUMBERS TO KNOW
• Babson is 15-0 since the start of last season when leading at halftime, and has won 40 consecutive games when leading after three quarters, a streak that dates back to 2020.
• The Green and White are 16-3 since last year when forcing at least eight turnovers. 
• The Beavers finished 15-1 in 2024 when winning at least half the face-offs. 
• Babson is 7-4 in games decided by two goals or fewer going back to 2023. 

UP NEXT
• Babson will host its fourth straight home game to open the season against Nichols on Tuesday at 5 p.m. at MacDowell Field.