Colby Men’s Lacrosse protects one-goal lead over Trinity for second conference win

This past Saturday afternoon, April 23, Colby Men’s Lacrosse defended their home turf against the visiting Trinity Bantams in a closely contested game to pick up their second win in the NESCAC and move on to a 5-7 overall record.

Coming into the matchup, neither side had won a game in conference since the first half of March. Trinity defeated Bates on March 12, while the Mules defeated middle-of-the-pack Wesleyan on March 19. On April 16, Colby had their senior day spoiled by Middlebury after being handily defeated by Bowdoin the week before (Apr. 13).

While the NESCAC playoffs offer a generous berth to the top eight teams out of eleven, the Mules’ one win only earned them a tenth place ranking ‑ just over Bates. Trinity had only one win for themselves, but one less loss, earning them the ninth place ranking, just above Colby. While the Saturday contest was trivial within the larger context of the conference, a win would provide at least some padding between the winner and the floor of the conference.

The Bantams cracked the game open, scoring off a Colby turnover for the first lead of the game. Trinity then won the face-off and capitalized to double their young lead. Jack Rickards ’22 provided the response to make the score 2-1.

 As Trinity knocked their lead up to 3-1 and won the face-off, a hungry Mules’ side repossessed the ball and fired six successive shots, looking to reign in Trinity’s growing lead. However, the Mules failed to put all six on target, except one that was saved by the Bantams’ goalie. The Mules later scraped together two scores from Rickards and Matt Stein ’25 along with another from Trinity to finish the period at a close 4-3 with momentum on Colby’s side.

Trinity, however, came out of the break firing ‑ and firing accurately ‑ to push themselves up to 7-3. Noah Froio ’22, a top provider for Colby’s offense, found the back of the net to make the score 7-4. Trinity found themselves an answer, looking to pull away, and earned their eighth goal of the day.

With an 8-4 scoreline, the Mules needed to reign in the Bantam’s offense and ramp up their scoring in order to get back in the game. The Mules did just that, scoring five unanswered goals in the last six minutes of the period to earn themselves a one-goal lead at the half.

Coming into the third period, the Mules had fought their way back into the game and just needed to stave off the Bantams, who were surely looking to wrestle back the lead. The scoreline from the third period represented the tight tussle evolving between the two teams; Trinity took advantage of their extra-man, scoring off a Colby slashing-penalty, but Jack Goller ’23 responded quickly with a score for the Mules. The Mules struggled to find the back of the net enough to build insurance, but they successfully slowed the Bantams’ attack.

The trend continued into the fourth and final period, but the Mules successfully protected the one-goal lead they wrestled away from Trinity earlier in the second period, finishing the game at 13-12.

The last game of the Mules’s season was Wednesday April 27.

~ Rohan Sinha `24