Springfield, Mass. - March 23, 2022 - The Springfield College men's lacrosse program took down No. 11 Amherst, 15-14, in an overtime thriller on Wednesday night on Stagg Field. 

Springfield improves to 3-4, while Amherst College, who was ranked No. 11 in most recent USILA Division III National Poll, drops to 3-2. Through seven games this season, this is the third time the Pride have played an overtime game.

 Zac Schuette (Ballston Spa, N.Y.) put together a tremendous outting for Springfield with five goals and three assists. Joe Maimone (Allendale, N.J.) pitched in three goals and a helper, while Chris Santa Barbara (Hillsborough, N.J.) buried two goals and assisted on three more. Between the pipes, Jack Hamilton (Falmouth, Mass.) anchored the Pride defensively with 16 saves. Connor Roberts (Somers, Conn.) added five caused turnovers and four groundballs and tacked on a goal in a gritty effort on defense. 

Amherst was led by Brock Gonzalez's six goals, while Carter Tate contributed four goals. Mitch Likins saved 11 shots in the setback. 

Springfield battled to a 2-1 start as Schuette shook his defender and scored the straight-away goal to give the Pride an early 2-1 lead with 9:40 to play in the first. Amherst responded with four-straight goals to take a 5-2 lead heading into the second. The Pride opened up the second quarter with a pair of man up opportunities and capitalized on both wih Jarrett Nagengast (Bay Shore, N.Y.) scoring at 14:37 and Maimone delivering the next at 12:54 to bring Springfield within one of the Mammouths at 5-4. After a goal on the next faceoff gave Amherst a 6-4 lead, Springfield regained its lead at 7-6 off three-straight highlighted by two from Schuette, however, Gonzalez would score with nine seconds remaining to let the game go to the half tied at 7-7. 

Springfield gained momemtum in the third quarter scoring four-straight goals and pushing its lead to 11-8 after Santa Barbara delivered a nice feed to Schuette in the middle of the defense for the score with 7:31 remaining in the third quarter. Another goal from Gonzalez in the waning seconds of the third would make just a two-goal game at 11-9 heading to the fourth. 

Amherst opened the fourth with a goal from Tate to cut it to 11-10, although, Santa Barbara fired from the left wing late in the shot clock to push Springfield ahead 12-10 with 9:37 to go. The next three goals for Amherst all came from Gonzalez, who powered the Mammoths back into the game and gave the vistors a 13-12 lead with 4:19 to go. Springfield knotted the game at 13-13 as Santa Barbara got free with a misdirection move to tie up the game with 3:49 to play. Amherst went back up 14-13 with 2:34 to go and looked to make a two-goal game, but Hamilton swallowed up a shot from Nicholas Kopp and let Springfield go on the attack. Santa Barbara drew a defender in transition and tossed it ahead to Mason Nocito (Mahopac, N.Y.) for the game-tying goal with 1:52 on the clock. The Springfield defense came up strong in the final seconds as Connor Dubzinski (West Rutland, Mass.) caused a key turnover to force overtime. 

Springfield earned possession off a face-off violation, and coming out of a timeout, Schuette took the ball on the left side and got free for the game-winner to lift Springfield to the victory. 

The Pride will return to NEWMAC play this weekend when it hosts MIT at 3:30 on Saturday, March 25. 

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