After a 10-day break, the Boston University men’s lacrosse team found itself back at the friendly confines of Nickerson Field to take on Dartmouth College.
In the first-ever meeting between the two squads, the Terriers (2-1) overcame the Big Green (1-1) by a score of 10-4. Freshman attack Chris Gray led the way with a five-point performance.
“We really challenged our guys after Ohio State to be better at the faceoff X, and not look at it as a one-on-one matchup with our faceoff guy,” BU head coach Ryan Polley said. “ … I was really happy with coming out and we were almost perfect in the first half.”
The Terriers opened the scoring just over three minutes into the first half.
Two goals in the first seven minutes of the contest from senior attack Jack Wilson put the Terriers up 2-0. The goals pushed Wilson’s point streak to 46 straight games.
Dartmouth had a chance to cut into BU’s lead with 8:01 left in the period as sophomore attack David Gallagher took a point blank shot. However, Terrier sophomore goalkeeper Joe McSorley denied him with an acrobatic save.
The Forest Hill, Maryland native finished the matchup with 11 saves.
Polley described McSorley’s performance in net as “excellent.”
“He made all the saves that we needed him to make,” Polley said. “And then he made a couple of spectacular ones.”
However, McSorley could not deny a shot from Big Green freshman attack Matt Paul who found the back of the net to put Dartmouth on the scoreboard with 4:19 left in the first quarter.
Senior attack Ryan Hilburn and junior attack James Burr added goals for BU two minutes and seven seconds apart of each other to give the Terriers a 4-1 lead to end the first quarter.
Polley added that he was happy with his team’s first quarter despite the long time away from the field.
“We had a week of really hard practice,” Polley said. “I think we could have been not lethargic, but could have come back a little out of sorts only because we haven’t played in so long. But I was really happy with the first quarter … I thought our team handled the layoff really, really well.”
The Terriers added to their run with 9:37 left in the half. Already having two assists on the night, Gray extended BU’s lead to 5-1.
Junior attack and midfielder Brendan Homire added to BU’s lead with 12:21 left in the third period. He received a pass from Burr and released a shot from his offhand.
Just about half way into the frame, Dartmouth put an end to the Terriers’ four-goal run.
Senior midfielder Jack Korzelius fired the shot and cut into BU’s lead to make the score 6-2.
The final quarter followed the same script as its three predecessors with the Terriers scoring first.
Just a minute into the fourth stanza, senior midfielder Hayden Ruiz scored his second goal of the season to give BU a five-goal lead.
With 9:05 left on the clock, Gray scored after dodging a Big Green defender, and scored off a sidearm shot while falling. Just 58 seconds later, Burr added another tally to give BU a 9-2 lead.
But Dartmouth refused to go down without a fight.
With 5:50 seconds left to play, sophomore attack Ben Martin buried a shot, beating McSorley for the Big Green’s third goal of the contest.
Just 59 seconds later, Gray completed his first collegiate hat-trick and his second five-point performance in three games.
“I thought Chris was great,” Polley added. “He certainly had the ball on his stick a lot. He made some plays [and] made some really good decisions. … He’s just a smart player and understands the game so well and he’s just a team guy.”
With 3:24 left on the clock, Korzelius scored his second of the night.
BU senior goalkeeper Colin MacDougall made his first appearance this season late in the fourth quarter and saved both shots he faced, helping the Terriers finish the evening with a 10-4 win.
Despite the victory, Polley said that his team will have to prepare for the United States Naval Academy on a very short week as the two Patriot League foes go toe-to-toe Saturday at Nickerson Field.
“I just think we just wanted to get back to playing BU lacrosse and that’s playing hard, being tough nosed and getting ground balls and faceoff well so it was certainly a nice win,” Polley said. “But we’re going to enjoy the win tonight and first thing [Wednesday morning] our attention is going to be turning to Navy as we prepare them and a great team on a very short week.”
