Sorry for the delay in getting out this update, the Wednesday-Saturday turn around when your season is on the line makes for a hectic couple of days!  As you know by now we dropped our regular season finale against the Ephs and along with it missed an opportunity to bring the Thomsen Trophy back to VT.  We led 6-3 at the half and 8-6 after 3 but we did not respond well as a team when Williams made a few plays to start the 4th quarter.  After Williams dropped in an empty netter in the last minute the final was 13-9, our largest defeat of the season.  Missing in the 2nd half of this game was the ability to regain our composure after Williams made a few plays, it reminded me of our last loss back in the end of March to RIT.  In that one RIT went on a similar run in the end of the 3rd and into the 4th and we weren't able to regroup

Our loss to Williams created a 3 way tie for 3rd place in the league and after tie breakers were applied we earned the 4th seed and Bates the 5th.  Only in the NESCAC will you find a 4th/5th game featuring the #9 and #10 teams in the country!  

It was an absolutely gorgeous day in VT on Saturday and had a nice crowd on hand to witness what would be an outstanding lacrosse game from start to finish.  Bates came out firing and fortunately Will Ernst was up to the task in the cage racking up 8 saves in the first quarter!  Will finished the day with 17 saves and would have been awarded the game ball had Kyle Soroka not stepped up the way he did.  Kyle has quietly been one of our best players this season, while there are some other guys with more points than him, he has made some big plays when we've need them.  Kyle ended up scoring 5 goals on Saturday including two in the last 70 seconds.  The first was a split to his left that he stuck from just outside the football hash marks at 9 yards and the game winner was to his right inside the hashes at 8.  Two big time plays by a big time player.  As some of you may recall, Kyle caught fire down the stretch last year as well.  

Thanks to 7th seeded Williams knocking off 2nd seeded Amherst we will now see Bowdoin in the Semifinals on Saturday.  The Polar Bears got us in OT earlier in the year up in Brunswick and have had a fantastic season.  They are a great team with some talented young players playing with a tremendous amount of confidence right now.  We will have our hands full in Medford and it promises to be an exciting game.  Game time is 3pm.