Courtesy Middlebury Athletic Communications

Box Score

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Wesleyan won its first NESCAC Men’s Lacrosse Championship, earning a 14-10 win over Tufts in a game played at Middlebury College’s Alumni Stadium on Sunday afternoon. The Cardinals (14-3), who will be making their fourth NCAA appearance in five years, receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, while the Jumbos (13-4) will hope for an at-large bid when the pairings are announced late Sunday night.

Wesleyan wasted little time as Matt Ward won the opening face-off and drove down the field and fed Jon Killeen for a score seven seconds into the game. The Cardinals took a 2-0 advantage at 9:11 as Jason Ben-Eliyahu ripped one into the back of the net from 10 yards away. Killeen and Conor Malangone scored for Wesleyan later in the first to make it a 4-0 lead. The teams exchanged the next four goals before Tufts’ Doug DiSesa slipped one past Wesleyan netminder Mike Borrero at :04, cutting the Cardinals lead to 6-3 after one quarter of play.

The lead grew to 8-3 in the second quarter with a pair of Cardinal goals. Russ Follansbee circled from behind the net to score the first, before feeding Dan Latzman in transition for the second tally. Tufts took advantage of a failure to advance, as Clem McNally put home a blast at the 9:50 mark. Follansbee made a quick-stick pass to Ben-Eliyahu as Wesleyan answered, before D.J. Hessler scored on the short side to make it a 9-5 game at the half.

The third quarter was even with each team scoring four goals, leaving Wesleyan with a 13-9 lead. Adam Kirk scored for the Cardinals on a rebound to open the third, as Ryan Molloy answered with a nice feed from McNally. Lonnie Blumenthal and Kirk gave the Cardinals a 12-6 lead, with Molloy and Hessler answering for the Jumbos, leaving them a 12-8 deficit at the 10:05 mark. Wesleyan took advantage of a failed clear and increased its lead to 13-8 on a tally from Follansbee. Tufts closed the quarter with a low bounce shot from Matt Witko with seven seconds left to make it a 13-9 game.

Tufts came within three at 13-10 with 12:10 left in the fourth as Hessler hit a cutting Kevin Williams for the tally. Wesleyan reestablished their four-goal cushion at 4:29 with a set-up by Killeen to a cutting Blumenthal for a 14-10 lead. In the final minutes both teams played at a frantic pace, but Borrero’s save on a shot by Tufts’ Mike Droesch was the last good look the Jumbos had on net.

Follansbee led all scorers with three goals and three assists, while Blumenthal added a hat-trick for Wesleyan. Three other Cardinals, Kirk, Killeen and Ben-Eliyahu each added a pair of goals. Hessler collected five points for Tufts, scoring two goals and setting up three more, while McNally added two goals and two assists. Borrero earned the win in net for Wesleyan stopping 10 shots, while Jumbo goalie Matt Harrigan made nine saves in defeat.

2009 NESCAC MEN’S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Sunday, April 26 at Higher Seeds
at No. 1 Middlebury 16, No. 8 Amherst 7
at No. 2 Bowdoin 11, No. 7 Trinity 8
at No. 3 Tufts 12, No. 6 Colby 8
at No. 4 Wesleyan 11, No. 5 Williams 5

Semifinals - Saturday, May 2 at Middlebury
No. 4 Wesleyan 15, at No. 1 Middlebury 14 - OT
No. 3 Tufts 10, vs. No. 2 Bowdoin 8

Championship - Sunday, May 3 at Middlebury
No. 4 Wesleyan 14, vs. No. 3 Tufts 10

2009 NESCAC MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Sunday, April 26 at Higher Seeds
1:00 p.m.
No. 8 at No. 1
No. 7 at No. 2
No. 6 at No. 3
No. 5 at No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, May 2 at Highest Remaining Seed
12:00 p.m./3:00 p.m.
Highest Remaining Seed vs. Lowest Remaining Seed
Remaining First Round Winner

Championship - Sunday, May 3
12:00 p.m.

Format
The top eight teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Men's Lacrosse Championship.  Quarterfinal games will be conducted on Sunday, April 26 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, May 2 and Sunday, May 3, respectively.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. 

Seeding
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of round robin play. Standings will be based on team winning percentages. Ties shall count as half a win.

The 8th seed will play at the 1st seed, the 7th seed will play at the 2nd seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed. Teams will be re-bracketed after first round games and the lowest remaining seed will face the highest remaining seed.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Friday, April 24.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

• Best record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).
• Most conference wins (in games that are part of the conference schedule and count toward league standings).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 4 teams (including all teams at the 4th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 8 teams (including all teams at the 8th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against conference teams in rank order.
• Comparisons shall be made one team at a time starting with the highest ranked team.
• If the tie remains after comparing results against the highest ranked team, the results against the next team in rank order shall be used. This process is continued until a winner is determined.
• Coin flip (or similar random action involving all tied teams).

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.