Bowdoin men’s lacrosse stuns Tufts, earns first No. 1 NESCAC seed

Bowdoin turned a showdown with the nation’s top-ranked Division III team into a program-defining night, beating Tufts 14-12 on Wednesday at Bello Field in Medford, Massachusetts, to end the Jumbos’ 42-game winning streak and claim the No. 1 seed in the NESCAC tournament for the first time.

The result carried weight well beyond one April scoreline. Tufts had not lost since a 14-13 overtime defeat at Hamilton on April 27, 2024, a stretch that lasted 725 days and included two NCAA Division III championships. Bowdoin, by contrast, had not beaten Tufts since 2017 and had not won on the road against the Jumbos since 2006. By the final horn, the Polar Bears had secured their first perfect regular season since 1989 and only the second undefeated regular season in program history.

Bowdoin set the tone early. Casey Ryan scored just under two minutes into the game, and the Polar Bears raced to a 5-1 lead after the first quarter before taking a 9-5 advantage into halftime. The box score showed a balanced attack that kept Tufts from keying on one scorer: Sam Raye-Steiner and Hudson Greene each scored four goals, Chris Berry added three, Ryan finished with two and Huck Trafton scored once.

Tufts pushed back in the third quarter, trimming the gap in a fast, physical second half that matched the stakes of a top-seed battle. But Bowdoin answered when it mattered most. Trafton scored with 21 seconds left to give the Polar Bears the decisive cushion, and Alec Delgado made the final save as time expired to seal the upset in front of 1,722 fans.

The quarter-by-quarter breakdown underscored how tightly the teams played after Bowdoin’s opening surge: Bowdoin won the first quarter 5-1, Tufts narrowed the halftime margin by splitting the second quarter 4-4, then the teams traded goals down the stretch as Bowdoin held on 14-12.

For Brunswick and the wider Sagadahoc County lacrosse community, the payoff is immediate. Bowdoin enters the postseason as the NESCAC’s top seed and with one of the clearest signature wins in the country. The Polar Bears are set to open the conference tournament at home in Brunswick against Williams, carrying a 14-0 record, a 10-0 league mark and the kind of national statement that can reshape a playoff path in a single night.