MANSFIELD, Conn. – After losing decisively against the Eastern Connecticut State University men's lacrosse team for nearly two decades, the University of Massachusetts Boston began knocking on the door seven years ago.
 
Tuesday night, the Beacons finally kicked the door in, ending 24 years and 26 games of futility against the Warriors with a 10-8 Little East Conference victory at Rick McCarthy Field.
 
Despite being held 17 goals under its season average, UMass (3-0, 3-0 LEC) delivered when it counted by scoring the only three goals of the fourth quarter to erase a one-goal deficit late in the third and hand Eastern (4-5, 1-3 LEC) its third straight home loss and fourth setback in a row this year.
 

Eastern graduate goalie Jack Farrell (Stratford) kept the Warriors within striking distance throughout with a remarkable 26 saves – one more than the record set in 2007 and later equalled twice by Blake Smaldone in 2016. Farrell was matched by UMass sophomore goalie Trevor Koppy, who finished with 23.
 
Behind Farrell (nine saves in the first quarter), Eastern controlled the tempo and took a 6-3 lead  when sophomore Sean Anderson (Fairfield) scored the team's second man-up goal a minute into the second half. While the Beacons managed only six goals in roughly 59 of the 60 minutes in the game, their other four goals came in a span of 1:05 that turned the three-goal deficit into a 7-6 lead.
 
Eastern won 15 of 22 faceoffs in the game, but the Beacons won two in a row when they needed it. After two goals pulled UMB to within one, 6-5, senior faceoff man Jack Dobrzynski captured two of his seven in the game, picking up the ground ball each time. He scored his second goal of the year directly off the first faceoff win to tie the game, 6-6, then graduate student Donovan Prozinski scored the goal-ahead goal 24 seconds later.
 
With just over two minutes left in the third quarter, the Warriors forged the fourth tie of the game on an unassisted goal by freshman Zacharie Appolon (Stamford) but the Beacons owned the decisive fourth quarter when Koppy made seven saves and the visitors got goals from Prozinski, junior Darragh Fahey and sophomore Jackson Whitlock to prevail.
 
Prozinski led UMB with four goals. Junior Gavin Admirand, who had scored 14 goals in the team's opening wins, was held scoreless on ten shots but assisted on the go-ahead and insurance goals in the final six minutes. Sophomore defenseman Nick Matuszak had four ground balls and caused four turnovers.
 
Senior Tyler Stein (Milford) won ten of 14 faceoffs, picked up eight ground balls and led Eastern with three goals, while senior Kyle Cardoza (Waterford), the last two settng up Stein and Anderson to give Eastern its 6-3 lead early in the third quarter. Senior defenseman Tyler Koppy (Attleboro, MA) had six ground balls and caused three turnovers for Eastern.
 
In its previous four visits to Eastern following a 20-0 loss in 2013, UMass had lost by an average of only three goals, including a 14-13 overtime setback in 2019 when the Warriors forced OT with five consecutive fourth quarter goals.
 
Eastern host the University of Southern Maine Saturday at 2 p.m. in an LEC game.
 
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