Men’s Lacrosse: Terriers take down No. 19 Bryant behind fourth-quarter surge

By Joe Eachus

The Boston University men’s lacrosse team battled their way to a 13-8 win over No. 19 Bryant on Saturday behind a dominant second-half team performance.

The Terriers (2-0, 0-0 PL) and Bulldogs (1-1, 0-0 NEC) were neck-and-neck for much of the first half, until BU took the lead with 11 seconds to go and never relinquished it.

“This was a team win,” BU head coach Ryan Polley said. “We were really good in a lot of places.”

Senior midfielder Jake Cates led the Terriers with four goals, while junior attackman Vince D’Alto added a hat trick and one assist.

“We’re gonna depend a lot on Jake to be a great player for us on a weekly basis, but he’s certainly capable and he proved that tonight,” Polley said.

Sophomore attackman Bennett Abladian led the Bulldogs in scoring with a hat trick of his own,

Junior face-off man Conor Calderone scored the game’s first goal 12 seconds in, taking a face-off win down the field for an unassisted score.

From there, the Terriers and Bulldogs traded the lead for almost the entire first half, until two man-up opportunities for the Bulldogs in the second quarter threatened to let Bryant run away with the lead. BU’s man-down defense held, not allowing a goal over both man-up opportunities.

“I’ve got to give a ton of credit to our man-down unit. … We ended up getting two stops in a row, keeping the score 6-4,” Polley noted.

Once the second penalty expired, BU went on a 3-0 run to end the half, with senior attackman Timmy Ley scoring the go-ahead goal with 11 seconds on the clock.

After halftime, Bryant continued to battle, evening up the score twice before BU was able to go on a 5-0 run from the late third quarter until the end of the game.

BU had 18 shots on goal to Bryant’s 22, but senior goalie Matt Garber had a strong 14-save performance. Garber also added three ground balls to help the Terriers narrowly win the ground ball battle, 35-26.

Calderone was also excellent once again at the face-off X, going 12-24 and winning 4-5 in the fourth quarter during the Terriers’ late-game run.

“I’m really proud of Conor. … We were really concerned with the offense [Bryant] created off the face-off, so for [him] to battle for 50/50 was a huge part of the game,” Polley also said.

BU moves on to face UMass Amherst next Saturday on Nickerson Field, with face-off scheduled for 1 p.m.