LEWISTON — Bates College could get used to this whole, “NCAA tournament” thing.
Playing in their first Division III tournament game in front of a partisan — and raucous — crowd at Garcelon Field on Wednesday, the Bobcats weathered an early Keene State attack and poured on the offense in the second half to top the Owls, 16-11.
“We’ve had a lot of success, with the exception of last Saturday against Amherst, in games that feature a lot of runs,” Bates coach Peter Lasagna said. “I think they’ve accumulated some confidence over time that, ‘Hey, they’re going to have runs, they’re a good team, it’s the NCAA playoffs, but we’re going to have runs, too.'”
Falmouth native Charlie Fay, a sophomore, scored two of the Bobcats’ three goals in the first quarter as the home team stayed afloat amid a Keene State barrage, and he added two more in the third to lead the team with four.
“That’s him on one leg, too,” Lasagna said. That’s scary.”
Jack Allard and Jack Strain added three each for Bates, with Conor Henrie adding a pair, and Kyle Weber, Reed Lewallen, Scott Baber and Andrew Melvin adding one each.
“We certainly have more than one guy you need to cover,” Lasagna added.
The multi-layered Bates attack was, in the end, too much for Keene State (12-5), a veteran team with a track record of playing in the NCAA tournament.
“The thing about them that’s so impressive is that they play one midfield, really,” Lasagna said. “They did that much damage to us playing three midfielders and three attackmen, so part of what our hope was, keep playing really hard, make them have to work hard and we will wear them down.”
Bates, meanwhile, shook off some early jitters and some early rust as the Owls continued to score almost at will, something they’ve been doing since their last loss — a loss to Bates on March 25.
“We told our guys, ‘Don’t connect our game against them last time to tonight,'” Lasagna said. “It was a completely different setting, and they’ve been kicking the snot out of people the past couple weeks. I think they’re really good, and they had a whole lot to do with getting up on us early.”
Keene State started strong in the first quarter. Tyler McKelvie netted three of his five goals in the opening frame, Hunter Arnold added a pair and the Owls shot out to a 6-2 lead. Fay’s second cut the Bates deficit to 6-3 after one.
Strain, Baber, Melvin and Allard scored in succession for the Bobcats in the second to erase the deficit and give the hosts a one-goal lead with 5:08 to play in the half. But Kevin Carey struck with 3:29 to play for Keene State to send the game into the half knotted, 7-7.
The Owls again grabbed the lead early in the second, getting another pair of goals from Arnold.
“They were doing a nice job early, they were shutting off our midfielders with their short-stick defenders, something we haven’t seen a whole lot of, made us work a little nit harder,” Lasagna said.
But Bates had more gas left in the tank.
“Again, if you take one of our guys away, though, there’s five, six, seven other guys who can hurt you,” Lasagna said.
Fay’s fourth and fifth framed one each from Allard and Strain to close out the third, putting Bates on top by two for the first time. The Bobcats added five more to Keene State’s two in the fourth to close out the scoring.
The Bobcats advance to the Division III men’s lacrosse round of 16 on Saturday, when they will face Tufts University, a 21-6 winner over Emmanuel College. Bates handed Tufts its first of only two losses this season in their previous meeting, a 12-8 victory in Medford, Mass.
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