Polar Bears Freeze Out Camels

The Bowdoin College lacrosse teams defeated Connecticut College on their home turf and away on Saturday. The following information was provided by William Tomasian, sports information director at Connecticut College:

Men's Lacrosse: Bowdoin 9, Conn College 5

The Bowdoin College men's lacrosse team built a 4-2 lead at the half on their way to a 9-5 victory at Connecticut College Saturday.

The Polar Bears improve to 3-4 with a 1-3 record in the NESCAC, while the Camels fall to 2-6 with a record of 0-4 in conference action.

Owen Smith (Brunswick, Maine), Patrick Lawlor (Hanover, Mass.) and Keegan Mehlhorn (North Berwick, Maine) all contributed with two goals and one assist to lead the visitors.

Junior defenseman Matthew Egan (Newton, Mass.) tallied a team-best seven ground balls for the Polar Bears. Senior net-minder Robert Burkhardt (St. Louis, Mo.) recorded five saves for the winning side.

Senior midfielder Mark Mangano (Basking Ridge, N.J.) tallied three goals and assisted on a fourth goal to lead Connecticut College. Mangano has now scored nine goals in his past two starts.

Eric Doran (Pennington, N.J.) doled out two assists for the Camels. Junior John Lenehan (Hingham, Mass.) made 19 stops in between the pipes for the hosts.

Bowdoin struck for two goals in a 26 second span of the first quarter, taking the lead for good with an unassisted marker from Smith with 4:14 remaining. In the second quarter, Nathan Fritts (Portland, Ore.) assisted Lawlor for a goal that vaulted the visitors out to a 4-1 advantage at the 7:33 mark.

But with 2:32 remaining in the half, Doran made a nifty looking pass across the box to Mangano, who rifled one home to close the gap to 4-2 at the break.

Both teams scored twice in the third quarter and Bowdoin carried a 6-4 advantage into the final 15 minutes of regulation.

In the fourth quarter, Smith assisted Mellhorn for an insurance goal with 9:58 left. Later on with 6:22 to go, the Polar Bears cashed in on an extra man opportunity, using a goal from Mark Flibotte (Cohasset, Mass.) to build an 8-4 advantage.

With 4:10 remaining, the Camels got one back when John Lyons (Barrington, R.I.) intercepted a clearing pass and found the back of the net with his sixth goal of the season to make it an 8-4 game but the Camels could not get any closer and the visitors were able to hold on for the 9-5 win.

Women's Lacrosse: Bowdoin 10, Conn College 9

Carolyn Gorajek scored five goals, including the last two for Bowdoin, to lead the Polar Bear women's lacrosse team in a 10-9 victory over Connecticut College on Saturday. Bowdoin, ranked 15th in the latest Division III poll, improves to 6-1 overall (3-1 NESCAC) with its fourth-straight win. The Camels fall to 3-5 (0-4 NESCAC) with the defeat.

Gorajek led all scorers with five goals and an assist for Bowdoin. Katie Stewart pitched in a pair of scores while Liz Clegg added a goal and two assists. Cameron Flaherty recorded three goals for the Camels, who received a goal and four assists from Katelyn Driscoll.

Connecticut College sprinted to an early lead thanks to a pair of scores from Flaherty in the opening minutes and pushed their lead to 6-3 late in the opening half when Haley Dumke found the back of the net at 8:47. But Bowdoin rallied to knot the score before intermission as Katy Dissinger's 13th goal of the season sparked a 3-0 run, capped by two from Gorajek to tie the game at 6-6.

The Polar Bears opened the second stanza on a 3-1 run to take a 9-7 advantage Gorajek's fourth of the day at 18:53. Driscoll was able to trim the lead to 9-8 with a score at 12:04 for the visitors, but Gorajek answered again at 8:35 to push Bowdoin's lead back to 10-8. Flaherty added a late score for Conn. College, but Bowdoin won the ensuing draw and ran out the remaining time.

Tara Connolly stopped 10 shots for the Polar Bears while Caitlin Cataldo made eight saves for the Camels. Bowdoin's Ingrid Oelschlager led the Bowdoin defense with four caused turnovers, three ground balls and two draw controls. Hope Barone grabbed a game-high four draw controls for the Camels.