BABSON PARK, Mass.— Graduate student
Beau Burns (Washington, D.C.) won 19-of-23 face-offs collected nine ground balls and junior
Seamus Rooney (Bay Shore, N.Y.) scored twice in a six-goal fourth-quarter surge as No. 3 Babson College pulled away from No. 20 St. Lawrence University for a 13-9 triumph in NCAA men's lacrosse tournament third-round action Sunday afternoon at MacDowell Field.
With its sixth straight victory, Babson improves to 18-2 overall and advances to the NCAA tournament quarterfinals for the first time in program history. St. Lawrence, which was playing in the tournament for the 16th time in program history, sees its season come to a close with a 12-7 record.
Rooney, senior
Bennett Smith (Lake Oswego, Ore.) and junior
Andrew Berardi (Orleans, Mass.) each tallied three points on two goals and an assist to lead the Beavers. Senior
Braden Reilly (Reading, Mass. ) scored twice and five others produced one goal apiece, classmate
Tyee Ambrosh ((Danvers, Mass.) caused two turnovers and scooped up three ground balls, and sophomore
Andrew Almquist (Wakefield, Mass.) made six saves to earn the win in goal.
Senior Ted Wilson (Boston, Mass.) led all scorers with four goals for the Saints, while junior Asa Beach (Darien, Conn.) scored twice and classmate Daniel Mahoney (Canton, N.Y.) chipped in with two assists. Sophomore Drew Knight (Radnor, Pa.) collected a game-high eight ground balls, and junior Heath Mann (Concord, N.H.) finished with 12 saves, his eighth double-digit save performance in his last 10 outings.
The visitors came out strong and scored the first three goals of the game in the opening six minutes. Wilson sandwiched a pair of goals around one by Beach for a 3-0 lead with 9:36 remaining in the first quarter. Babson came alive and answered with three straight goals of its own as Reilly scored one minute later with an assist from Berardi and Smith and Berardi later fired in goals 36 seconds apart to even the score at 3-3 with five minutes to go in the opening frame.
In a defensive battle that kept both teams scoreless over the next 11-plus minutes, Wilson broke the drought with his third of the game with 8:21 remaining in the second. Smith answered with his second goal of the game for Babson to tie the scored at 4-all, and sophomore Jamie Rosenzweig (Denver, Colo.) and junior
Cooper Chapman (Hingham, Mass.) traded goals later in the period as the teams went into the break in a 5-5 deadlock.
The tenacious defenses continued in the third quarter until Wilson fired in his fourth of the game to give St. Lawrence its fourth lead and Beach followed a minute and a half later with a man-up goal from Mahoney as the Saints went up 7-5. Babson got a much-needed goal from leading scorer graduate student
Joey Allen (Philadelphia, Pa.) with just under seven minutes left in the third. First-year Jensen Kohler (Cambridge, N.Y.) gave the Saints their two-goal lead back with a goal with 1:19 on the third-quarter clock, but grad student
Patrick McAleavey (Trumbull, Conn.) buried a pass from Rooney with 39 seconds on the clock the cut the deficit to one goal (8-7) heading into the fourth quarter.
The final stanza belonged to the Beavers as they outshot the Saints 14-4 and outscored them 6-1. Rooney and Reilly went back-to-back to give Babson its first lead of the day and Berardi followed with his second of the day for a 10-8 advantage. Senior Cam Croasdaile (Chagrin Falls, Ohio) cut into the deficit for the Saints with a goal with 6:12 remaining, but that would be all of the scoring for the visitors and the Green and White added goals by Rooney a minute later and insurance markers by first-year
Reid Vandenberg (Park City, Utah) and senior
Jack Feeks (Georgetown, Mass.) in the final two minutes.
Babson finished with a 41-26 advantage in shots and won 19 of the 26 face-offs, while St. Lawrence had a narrow 30-29 margin in ground balls and scored the only man-up goal of the game.
The Beavers advance to the quarterfinals where they will take on No. 10 RIT in the NCAA tournament for the third time in four years (date and location to be announced). The Tigers defeated Babson in the third round in both 2023 (20-9) and 2024 (23-16) in Rochester, N.Y.
GAME NOTES
• Babson registered its first win in three meetings all-time against Saint Lawrence in a series that dates back to 2014.
• The Green and White finish this season with a 10-2 record at McDowell Field and have won 11 consecutive conference playoff games at MacDowell Field dating back to 2016.
• Burns is now 194-of-259 this season on face-offs, which is the fourth-most wins in a single season in program history and is on track to set a new single-season program with a 74.9 winning percentage.
• The Beavers are 4-2 this season against nationally-ranked teams and 6-5 going back to last spring.
