PHILADELPHIA – In two short minutes, the Division III men’s lacrosse championship seemed to simply slip out of Amherst’s grasp.
The Mammoths entered the fourth quarter trailing by a goal, the same position it was in last week in the national semifinals. Yet just 120 seconds later, the deficit was four goals and the decidedly pro-Cabrini crowd rose to a fever pitch. Two losses at the faceoff circle and a missed man-up opportunity at the end of the third quarter put Amherst in a hole.
Amherst never recaptured that momentum for long in the fourth quarter, failing to follow its goals with possession or a quality shot. Meanwhile, Cabrini was perfectly fine with salting away the time and the Mammoths’ hopes of their first national championship. In the end, Amherst didn’t have an answer for the Cavaliers, who walked away from Lincoln Financial Field with a 16-12 victory and a new trophy to add to their collection.
“They’ve got a ton of grit,” Amherst coach Jon Thompson said. “The big plays sort of bounced their way (Sunday).”
It’s more apt to say the Mammoths (18-4) couldn’t find a way to capitalize on the early luck that came its way. Amherst’s defense suffocated Cabrini (22-2) on the first possession of the game, holding the Cavaliers without a shot while forcing a shot clock violation. Jackson Herrick came down the field and scored on Amherst’s first chance with the ball a little more than two minutes into the game.
The synergy between the defense and offense was strong, as the Mammoths held Cabrini’s stars in check at one end while creating chances for their own stars at the other. Amherst never trailed in the first half and held a distinct 26-16 advantage in shot attempts, but only 14 of those actually made it on the cage. Those missed chances haunted the Mammoths later once Cabrini’s attack started to fire.
The Cavaliers owned the second half on offense with a 25-16 advantage in shot attempts, but they made sure those shots counted. Cabrini scored 10 times on 13 shots on goal in the second half compared to just the six Amherst scored on its 14 first-half chances.
“They just shot the lights out,” Thompson said. “The balls were just in corners. They shoot really well in the second half, we don’t shoot really well in the first half, that’s a really tough mountain to straddle.”
Despite falling behind 3-1 in the first quarter, Cabrini’s defensive gameplan forced Amherst to make several early adjustments. The Mammoths couldn’t find any space in the middle lane around the crease, and the ball instead moved around the perimeter until Amherst tried to free up some room with its off-ball motion. The Cavaliers stuck to their attackers, though, and Colin Minicus was oftentimes left behind the net with a defender watching him and no stick to pass to for a quick shot.
Eventually Amherst had to let loose from long-range and tried to pick spots behind Cabrini goalie Riley White. The Mammoths had marginal success, though, either missing the goal entirely with their attempts or finding White’s stick or his legs. White made eight saves in the first half and stoned Amherst twice on momentum-swinging shots in the second.
“When you have to take those deeper shots, we have to change the plan more,” junior Matt Solberg said. “At the end, the goalie got hot and made some great saves.”
Gib Versfeld didn’t have as much luck trying to stop the Cabrini offense once it started to fire on all cylinders. Amherst did a good job at keeping the Cavaliers on the perimeter in the first half and preventing Cabrini from taking shots from good scoring areas. But it was a completely different story in the second half.
Cabrini won a lot of one-on-one battles around the crease to free attackers to take close-range shots on Versfeld. The sophomore made just three stops in the second half as he was left with little or no hope at stopping the shots that were coming at him out of the Cavaliers’ sticks.
Thompson credited that to the game plan Cabrini coach Steve Colfer devised, which left Amherst no time or space to double team or slide help over to defenders who lost their mark in these one-on-one battles.
“They open it off of end lines so there was no hot slide, no double team available and we didn’t do a great job at having a double ready to come off of dodges off of end lines,” Thompson said. “They are a super team at inside roll dodging, and those attackmen would inside roll and we didn’t have a slide ready because they had just opened it up, now they’re 1-on-0 with our goalie.”
Where Cabrini really started to win the game was on the wings in its defensive zone. The Cavaliers forced 15 turnovers, including several in critical moments of the game. Most of the time, it was a simple battle for the ball behind the goal off a deflected pass or shot that Cabrini ultimately won and used to start a fast break the other way.
Although Amherst won the ground ball battle 37-34 for the game, it couldn’t seem to scoop up the important loose balls as the game slipped away.
“They didn’t do anything really special, they just played really tough defense,” senior Evan Wolf said. “They came big on the ground balls, especially in the second half. Those guys were just competitors and it comes down to ground balls and in the end, they just beat us.”