Move over, Hobart men’s lacrosse. You have company.
Salisbury captured its 13th national championship — tying the NCAA Division III record set by the aforementioned Statesmen in 1993 — by upending Tufts, 17-12, in a tournament final Sunday before an announced 15,525 at Lincoln Financial Field.
The title game pitted the top two teams in the most recent United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association Coaches poll with the Jumbos in the top spot and the Sea Gulls one slot behind.
Sophomore midfielder Brice Bromwell’s four goals sparked Salisbury (23-1) to its first crown since 2017. That five-season absence (not including 2020, which was canceled by the coronavirus pandemic) might have seemed like an eternity for a program that had graduated a class with at least one title every year since 1994 when the streak began. Instead, the team can celebrate the end of a two-game mini slide in the tournament final that included an 8-6 loss to Wesleyan in 2018 and a 15-14 double overtime heartbreaker to RIT in 2021.
“I can’t even put it into words,” graduate student attackman Cross Ferrara said. “It’s been a long time coming. We put a lot of night work and a lot of morning work in, and for it to finally come to fruition, it’s kind of unbelievable. This group of guys is truly special. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a team that’s so tightly bonded. Hats off to Coach. We were over-prepared for every single game. Just an incredible feeling.”
The victory further burnished Sea Gulls coach Jim Berkman’s ever-growing legacy in the sport. He capped his 35th season at the helm with his 620th win (most among all three divisions in men’s lacrosse) and the program’s 92nd victory in the NCAA Tournament (most among all three divisions).
“It’s pretty special in a lot of ways when you think about the number and what’s been done in the game,” he said of the program’s 13th NCAA championship. “It’s just a tribute to not only this year’s team, but a tribute to the 35 years I’ve been at Salisbury and the guys that made this all possible. Just really proud of this group.”
Ferrara scored all three of his goals in the second half and added an assist, and senior midfielder Jack Dowd chipped in two goals and two assists for Salisbury, which ended the season riding a 20-game winning streak. The team’s last setback was Feb. 25, a 12-10 decision at Gettysburg.
Graduate student attackman Jude Brown, a Towson resident and John Carroll graduate, and senior midfielder Luke Nestor scored three goals each.
Due to a 23-9 disadvantage on faceoffs, Salisbury was forced to rely on its defense to stand tall, and the unit proved up to the challenge despite playing the entire NCAA Tournament without graduate student Thomas Ballard, a starting defenseman who suffered a season-ending knee injury on May 7. Sophomore goalkeeper Nicholas Ransom made a game-high 16 saves, and junior John DeFazio made a switch from his usual long-stick midfield position to close defense to limit Tufts senior attackman Jack Boyden to one goal on six shots and two assists.
Boyden had entered the game with a program-record 154 points, eclipsing the previous mark set last spring by Mac Bredahl. On Wednesday, he was named USILA’s Iroquois National Outstanding Player of the Year and Lt. Col. J.I. Turnbull Outstanding Attackman.
Salisbury sprinted out of the gates, outscoring the Jumbos 6-0 in the first quarter and never trailing. The closest Tufts got to tying the score occurred when senior attackman Kurt Bruun and senior faceoff specialist Mason Kohn scored goals seven seconds apart to draw within 11-9 with 1:26 left in the third quarter.
But the Sea Gulls responded with three unanswered goals in a 3:10 stretch spanning the last two periods to regain a 14-9 advantage. An extra-man goal from Brown with 29.2 seconds left in the third quarter and even-strength goals from Nestor with 13:43 remaining in the fourth and Bromwell with 12:20 left put the finishing touches on the win.
“It was more just us being prepared for anything they threw at us,” said DeFazio, who racked up three ground balls, one caused turnover and one goal. “Kudos to the coaches. They got us ready with the scout and everything. We were just ready for anything that they threw at us. That was a great way to start off the game.”
Bruun compiled game highs in goals (five) and points (six), and Kohn won 15 of 19 draws with 14 ground balls and one goal. But their efforts weren’t enough to spark Tufts (23-0) to its fourth overall crown and first since 2015 when that squad walloped Lynchburg, 19-11.
The Jumbos are still the only opponent with multiple wins against the Sea Gulls in the title game with victories of 9-6 in 2010 and 12-9 in 2014. But the 6-0 deficit to Salisbury prevented Tufts from becoming the 10th team in Division III history to cap a perfect season with the NCAA title.
“They were 22-1 for a reason,” coach Casey D’Annolfo said. “They’re incredibly talented top to bottom. You can’t spot a team like that six goals to start the game. I thought they had a really good game plan in terms of slowing us down, and I feel like we as a coaching staff didn’t put our guys in a position to be successful early on. That’s just a credit to them and their resiliency.”
The announced attendance of 15,525 was the largest to watch a Division III final since 2019 when 18,702 saw Cabrini defeat Amherst, 16-12, in Philadelphia. Sunday’s crowd was also the smallest at a professional stadium since 2003 when the NCAA used a turnstile count instead of its current system of ticket sales (excluding 2021 when attendance was severely restricted by the coronavirus pandemic).
