Courtesy Tufts Sports Information

Box Score

MEDFORD, Mass. - Middlebury won its seventh consecutive NESCAC Men's Lacrosse title Sunday afternoon with an 11-6 victory against Wesleyan in the final game of the 2007 NESCAC Men's Lacrosse Championship at Tufts University s Bello Field.

The Panthers (10-6), who earn the conference's automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament, have not lost a game in the NESCAC tournament during the seven-year history of the event. Sophomore Skyler Hopkins (Easton, Md.) scored five goals today as the Panthers improved to 15-0 overall in the NESCAC championship games since 2001. Wesleyan (16-2), which will await a possible at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament, got two goals from junior Grayson Connors (Princeton Junction, N.J.).

Middlebury took a different route to the title this year. They entered the tournament as the sixth-seed after a 4-5 conference record during the regular season. They had been the tournament s #1 seed in the previous six seasons. The 2007 Panthers defeated Trinity 16-4 in the first round, #7 Tufts 8-7 in the semi-finals and #4 Wesleyan today for the championship.

Middlebury jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the first period, including the first of two goals by senior tri-captain Nick Bastis (Old Greenwich, Conn.). Wesleyan tied the game at 3-3 with two quick goals in the middle of the second period, by Connors at 8:28 and by Jeff Strittmatter (Miller Place, N.Y.) 13 seconds later. When Connors scored a man-up goal with two minutes to play in the half, the Cardinals took their first lead of the game at 4-3. However, Hopkins scored twice for Middlebury in the final 31 seconds, including a goal with just two seconds remaining after a costly Wesleyan turnover, and they led 5-4.

Into the third quarter, the Panthers added two goals to their lead. They extended their run to three goals at 7:45 of the fourth quarter for an 8-4 advantage. Freshman Pete Smith (Wilton, Conn.) had two assists during the run. Wesleyan s Kwasi Ansu (Bethesda, Md.) got one for Wesleyan at 5:54, but the Panthers scored the next two and had the game well under control at 10-5 with 3:19 on the clock.

The Panthers flung 52 shots towards Cardinals keeper Charlie Congleton (Groton, Mass.), who stopped 14. Senior tri-captain Alex Palmisano (Southport, Conn.) also finished with 14 stops in the Middlebury cage, facing 31 Wesleyan shots. Middlebury also won the ground balls battle 40-29, won 13 of the 21 face offs and scored two man-up goals.

Smith finished with three assists overall, while sophomore Mike Stone (Boston, Mass.) joined Bastis with two goals for Middlebury. Freshman Jon Killeen (Derry, N.H.) and senior quad-captain Mike Hines (Newburyport, Mass.) each added a goal and an assist for Wesleyan.

2007 NESCAC MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP
First Round - Sunday, April 29 at Higher Seeds
at No. 2 Wesleyan 7, No. 7 Bowdoin 3
No. 6 Middlebury 16, at No. 3 Trinity 4
No. 5 Williams 9, at No. 4 Amherst 5

Semifinals - Saturday, May 5 at Tufts
No. 6 Middlebury 8, at No. 1 Tufts 7
vs. No. 2 Wesleyan 8, No. 5 Williams 0

Championship - Sunday, May 6 at Tufts
No. 6 Middlebury 11, vs. No. 2 Wesleyan 6

2007 NESCAC MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP
First Round - Sunday, April 29 at Higher Seeds
No. 7 vs. No. 2
No. 6 vs. No. 3
No. 5 vs. No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, May 5
at No. 1 Seed - 12:00 p.m./3:00 p.m.

Championship - Sunday, May 6
12:00 p.m.

Format
The top 7 teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Men's Lacrosse Championship.  First round games will be conducted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, May 5 and Sunday, May 6, respectively.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. 

Seeding
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of round robin play.  The number one seed will receive a bye in the first round and will host the semifinals and championship game.  The next three seeds will host first round games with the number two seed drawing the number seven seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Saturday, April 28.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

• Best record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).
• Most conference wins (in games that are part of the conference schedule and count toward league standings).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 4 teams (including all teams at the 4th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 8 teams (including all teams at the 8th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against conference teams in rank order.
• Comparisons shall be made one team at a time starting with the highest ranked team.
• If the tie remains after comparing results against the highest ranked team, the results against the next team in rank order shall be used. This process is continued until a winner is determined.
• Coin flip (or similar random action involving all tied teams).

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.