FOXBOROUGH, MASS. — Every challenge, every powerhouse program, every question asked — Wesleyan answered them all postseason long.
This wasn’t a David-slays-Goliath story, far from it. But it was one where the task was never too tall. Not when the NCAA Tournament brought about Cortland, Cabrini, Tufts and RIT in succession, four teams that could’ve found themselves at Gillette Stadium any different year. And certainly not when back-to-back national champions Salisbury stood in the way of the Cardinal’s first-ever national title.
Rather, each step instilled a belief, one where Wesleyan ultimately lifted the trophy on championship weekend with an 8-6 win over the Sea Gulls. Coach John Raba, in his 22nd season, finally had his national title.
“Just an incredible moment for our program, our senior group,” Raba said. “We worked so hard, this particular group, for years now. It wasn’t just this particular day; this is a culmination of what we’ve been doing and guys believing that we had the team to get to a national championship and win it. As a coach, you couldn’t be more proud of a group.”
All season long, Wesleyan relied on balanced scoring, and the storyline was no different against Salisbury. Harry Stanton, Taylor Ghesquiere and Carter Hawthorne each had two goals, easing the load of second-leading scorer Ronan Jacoby being held off the scoreboard entirely.
That, combined with an 11-save performance from goalie Otto Bohan, was enough to keep a young Salisbury offense in check. Plus, with a 15-man senior class and its backer zone defense, originally perfected by Division II school NYIT, Wesleyan had enough guile to see the game out.
“We love playing out of conference teams,” said senior longstick middie Andres Rodriguez. “A lot of our season is taken up by NESCAC and last year, when we came into the NCAA Tournament, we played all NESCAC teams up until the semifinals. This year, when we finally had the chance to play different teams and show the South as well as the North that we had what it takes, we were pretty excited just to be out there and playing against these guys.”
While it was a banner day for Wesleyan, Salisbury showed why it’s a regular on Championship Weekend. The Sea Gulls won the ground-ball battle 39-23. Plus, Brandon Warren made 11 saves, with Wesleyan held scoreless in the fourth quarter. Middies Zach Pompea and Corey Gwin each scored a pair, too.
But that wasn’t enough to give Salisbury a 3-peat and tie Hobart with 13 national championship titles. Even when Wesleyan even stormed out to a 4-0 lead in the first quarter, coach Jim Berkman was confident his group could come back.
“We made some mistakes early in the game and gave them a lead that nobody would want to give a team like that, then we held them scoreless for almost 26 minutes,” Berkman said. “Then we gave up four goals in reality over, what, a 56-minute period to a team that's one of the higher scoring teams in New England.”
A strong defense was crucial in getting Salisbury to this point in the first place, when they overcame an early-season 3-3 stretch, and then rattled off 14 straight wins, knocking off Centennial Conference powerhouse Gettysburg in the NCAA semifinals.
Through that stretch, two-time All-American and senior defender Kyle Tucker said Salisbury found its identity. Tucker admitted, however, that they let Wesleyan get away with things early on.
“Through the playoff run, oh, my God, there was just so much resilience and intensity from each one of my teammates,” Tucker said. “From winning our first game to the nine-goal comeback against [Christopher Newport], and two-goal win against Dickinson, one goal Gettysburg, and then this game we just let them do what they wanted early on.”
What will go down in history, though, is Wesleyan’s historic day. It occurred a two-hour drive from their Connecticut campus, leading to three sections deep of families in Cardinal red at Gillette Stadium.
And it was the culmination of a 22-year project for Raba, one where he reflected on the meaning of becoming the latest NESCAC program to stand atop Division III.
“[That first season], if someone asked me or told me you're going to win a national championship, I would have said to them in what sport, because it's not going to be lacrosse the way it's going right now,” Raba said. “ So in that moment, again, it took us a long time to kind of get the right guys we wanted, and it wasn't an easy road. We didn't take shortcuts academically. We did it the right way.”