BRUNSWICK — Even the No. 2-ranked team in the nation gets jitters during the NCAA Division III men’s lacrosse tournament.
Those nerves Bowdoin felt didn’t last longer than the first quarter Saturday.
The Polar Bears (17-1) overcame a slow start and rolled to a 16-6 victory over Scranton (14-7) in the second round. Bowdoin will play Stevens at 3 p.m. Sunday in Brunswick. Stevens beat Amherst, 14-13.
The visitors established their presence early with a physical style and superb goaltending from Carsen Kirchner (22 saves), as the Landmark Conference champs took a 2-1 lead with 6:24 left in the first quarter.
A Scranton timeout shortly after the go-ahead goal gave Bowdoin a chance to regroup.
“(Coach Bill Mason) was like, ‘All right, we got the jitters out. Let’s go play.’ And so I think after that, we played a lot more free,” Bowdoin junior attack Chris Berry said. “He always says, ‘Look for the spark play,’ and I think we got a couple spark plays. Nico (Schermer) had a nice goal, Alex Byrne had a nice goal, Brooks (Kitchel), so three pole goals pretty much in succession, they fired us up.”
The Polar Bears saw success when they trusted their simple reads and played as a connected unit. They scored nine straight goals from 2:38 left in the first quarter to 4:18 left in the second and took an 11-3 lead into the halftime break.
Thirteen players scored for the Polar Bears, with two goals apiece from Casey Ryan, Sam-Raye Steiner and Hudson Greene. Berry, who scored Bowdoin’s opening goal, led all players with five assists.
“I’m not sure exactly what the shooting percentage was today, but I know it probably wasn’t great for me,” Berry said. “So being able to dish it to other guys who I know (are) seeing the ball better, maybe, or can put it back in the back of the net, that is awesome.”
Bowdoin outshot Scranton 57-22 (38-20 on goal). The Polar Bears comfortably controlled the other facets of the game, winning the face-off battle (17 of 26, including seven straight by Phoenix Kelly-Zuckerman in the middle quarters) and the ground-ball margin (42 to 19). Bowdoin goalie Alec Delgado stopped 14 shots.
Facing back-to-back games for the second-straight week, Berry and Schermer know the importance of focusing on recovery and remaining hungry for another win.
“We can definitely lean on that experience, the type of prep, recovery, sleep, just everything that we had last week (in the NESCAC tournament) and know that we just need to be a little bit better,” Mason said. “Especially coming out of the first quarter into the second quarter, and relying on just our depth, our guys’ ability to make the plays that are needed.”
Quinn Carson led Scranton with three goals. Brendan Donahue scored once and assisted twice.
Comments are not available on this story. Read more about why we allow commenting on some stories and not on others.
We believe it's important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It's a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others.
We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
You can read more here about our commenting policy and terms of use. More information is also found on our FAQs.
Show less