The Amherst men’s lacrosse team suffered its first losses of the season over the past week, falling first to Bates and then splitting a pair of games at the Mustang Classic in Maryland.
The purple and white opened spring break play against the Bobcats on Sunday, March 12 in a game that had been rescheduled due to extreme cold the day prior. Although Amherst notched the first goal of the game, courtesy of an unassisted tally from Evan Wolf ’19, Bates responded with five unanswered goals in a less than three-minute span. The teams then traded goals for the rest of the first, with the purple and white receiving contributions from Wolf, Chris Albanese ’17 and Trenton Shore ’20. However, the Bobcats managed three of their own to leave the scoreboard reading 8-4 at the end of the quarter.
Bates again came out firing to start the second, putting up three unanswered goals and extending its lead to seven. Although Amherst cut the lead back down to 12-7 entering the half, thanks to two more goals from Wolf, Bates headed to the locker room brimming with confidence. The third and fourth quarters played out similarly to the first two frames, with the purple and white easily able to score, especially Wolf who added four more goals, but completely incapable of defending the Bobcats. When the final whistle blew, Bates left the field with a 22-17 win, giving Amherst its first loss of the season.
The purple and white then traveled to Owings Mills, Maryland, to participate in the Mustang Classic. First matched up against RIT, Amherst fell in yet another shootout, this time by a heartbreaking score of 17-16. The Tigers leapt out to an early 1-0 lead, but the purple and white were relentless, scoring five unanswered goals, with all the tallies coming from Albanese and Killian, who notched three and two goals, respectively, in the quarter. Although RIT pulled two goals back in the waning minutes of the quarter, Amherst managed to regain the four-goal margin with two quick goals at the start of the second.
It was the Tiger’s turn to go on a run of their own, notching five straight goals and grabbing an 8-7 lead going into halftime, one that RIT would never relinquish. The Tigers consolidated their lead at the start of the third, scoring three straight goals and winning the overall frame 6-2, good for a 14-9 lead at the end of three quarters.
Amherst fought back valiantly, closing the gap to just one goal at 16-15 with just under two minutes remaining. A goal from RIT’s Chad Levick, though, was the final nail in the coffin, and even with one last goal from Albanese, the Tigers emerged with the win.
The purple and white closed out the tournament with its first win in nearly two weeks, defeating Lynchburg in a low-scoring, 10-8 affair. Amherst dominated the opening frame, scoring four unanswered, with Wolf and Shore again adding their names to the scoresheet. However, a sloppy second quarter that saw Lynchburg score four times resulted in the game being knotted at five apiece heading into the half. Lynchburg even managed to take a one-goal lead twice, but the purple and white pegged them back each time, before Albanese scored to give the purple and white the lead for good with 4:50 to go in the third.
The fourth was scoreless for nearly ten minutes before Colin Minicus ’20 scored his third goal of the game to put the score at 9-7. Lynchburg responded almost immediately, though, and the next few minutes were fraught as the Hornets fought desperately to even the score. A late goal from Max Keeley ’18 sealed the win for Amherst.
Amherst will play at home on Wednesday, March 22 against non-conference Endicott at 4:30 p.m.
