Tufts men’s lacrosse coach Casey D’Annolfo is never one to shy away from making his opinion known. Such was again the case after the Jumbos dominated Stevenson 19-4 last weekend in the third round of the NCAA Division III tournament.

“I feel like our defense never gets enough credit,” D’Annolfo asserted. “Part of it is when you score a lot and you play with the tempo that we play with, you’re going to give the opponent more opportunities to score. You’re not going to be scoring 19 goals a game and giving up four goals a game too much. That’s not really our style and the way we play defense ... We’re going to play an aggressive style and give up some easy dunks. But we’re probably also going to disrupt what the other team does.”

Whatever the formula, Tufts will host a quarterfinal Wednesday afternoon against NESCAC rival Amherst. The Jumbos could be without two of their top players due to injuries.

All-American midfielder Nick Shanks has missed the last two games and will be a game-time decision.  Same goes for junior goalie Mason Pollack, who took home second-team All-NESCAC honors and has been dealing with injuries since the fall. Sophomore goalie has Joe Theuer admirably filled Pollack’s shoes against Stevenson, making 10 saves.

“We have all the trust and all the faith in the world in Joe,” D’Annolfo said. “In the preseason, we felt like he and Mason were neck and neck, honestly. Mason was the incumbent and got the nod because neither one of them had done so much to say, ‘I deserve to be the guy.’ It wasn’t because they were playing poorly; they were both excellent.”

Holding Stevenson to four goals is no small feat, especially considering the magnitude of an NCAA tournament game. In fact, Tufts had not held an opponent to four goals since beating Amherst 16-4 in the 2016 NESCAC championship game. That season, the Jumbos went on to win their third national title.

The foundation starts with senior close defenseman Arend Broekmate, who D’Annolfo called the best defenseman in Division III. Then there’s senior short-stick defensive midfielder Luke Kurtz, who often guards the opponent’s top midfielder.

Now the focus shifts to repeating shutdown defense Wednesday against Amherst, which averages 18.37 goals per game, good for third-most nationally. The Mammoths are led by senior attackman Evan Wolf, the back-to-back NESCAC Player of the Year who was the sole Division III player named to this year’s Tewaaraton Award watch list.

Handling all that, D’Annolfo said, is just part of the annual gauntlet that’s the North section of the NCAA tournament bracket. A semifinal appearance would come against No. 1 RIT or NESCAC runner-up Williams.

“Amherst does some things that will keep you up at night, but we will do our best to have some contingencies,” D’Annolfo said. “It doesn’t mean we’ll be able to stop everything they do, but we can slow it down. At the end of the day, this game will come down to how well we can execute. We’re spending a lot of time focusing on us.”