Courtesy Middlebury Athletic Communications

Box Score

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Williams jumped out to a 4-1 lead over Bowdoin and cruised to a 9-4 victory over the Polar Bears in the final of the 2008 NESCAC Men's Lacrosse Championship held at Middlebury College on Sunday afternoon. With the win, the 10-5 Ephs earn the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Since the inception of the NESCAC tournament in 2001, Williams has never made it past the semifinals, while Bowdoin (11-6) has made four semifinal appearances and the finals in the inaugural event.

The Ephs got on the board with a pair of goals in the first quarter, including a man-up score by David Hawley for a 2-0 lead with 4:26 left. Cullen Winkler answered for the Polar Bears on a driving shot from the right side, cutting the lead to 2-1 with 3:41 on the clock. Michael Vrla scored the next two for Williams, highlighted by his second tally off a dodge to the doorstep of Bowdoin’s starting goalie Gordon Convery for a 4-1 lead after one quarter.

Hawley extended the Ephs’ lead to 5-1 in the in the opening minute of the second quarter with a bullet from the left side set up by a feed from Dixon Hargrove. The Polar Bears scored the final goal of the half on Owen Smith’s goal at the 1:15 mark, setting the score at 5-2 at intermission.

Smith got Bowdoin within two, rolling past a great pick for his second goal of the game at 10:33 in the third quarter. Williams responded, scoring the next four goals, building a 9-3 advantage at the 4:33 mark in the fourth quarter. Hargrove had a pair during the run, including his tally set-up by Bryan Wrapp after an Ephs timeout. The Polar Bears added the final goal with 3:19 remaining as Matt Legg collected a feed from Harry Ashfourth, capping the scoring at 9-4.

Vrla led the Ephs with three goals, while Hawley and Hargrove added a pair of tallies and two assists apiece, while Smith’s two goals paced Bowdoin. Michael Gerbush made 13 saves in net for Williams, allowing four goals. Convery stopped four shots and gave up five goals in the first half for the Polar Bears, while teammate Alex Gluck made four saves and allowed four goals in the second half.

2008 NESCAC MEN’S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP
First Round - Sunday, April 27 at Higher Seeds
at No. 4 Bowdoin 11, No. 5 Connecticut College 10 - OT
at No. 2 Wesleyan 11, No. 7 Trinity 5
No. 6 Williams 14, at No. 3 Tufts 6

Semifinals - Saturday, May 3 at Middlebury
No. 6 Williams 11, at No. 1 Middlebury 10 - OT
No. 4 Bowdoin 11, vs. No. 2 Wesleyan 9

Championship - Sunday, May 4 at Middlebury
No. 6 Williams 9, vs. No. 4 Bowdoin 4

2008 NESCAC MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP
First Round - Sunday, April 27 at Higher Seeds
No. 7 vs. No. 2
No. 6 vs. No. 3
No. 5 vs. No. 4

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

Championship - Sunday, May 4
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 27, 2008 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, May 3 and Sunday, May 4, 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 26.

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.