The men’s lacrosse team entered the NAC playoffs with a 6-1 conference record and were seeded second, hosting Maine-Maritime in the conference semifinals. With teammate Steve Bloomer in the hospital after a bad car accident, the Spartans were fueled up and their desire was apparent when they took the field last week against Maritime.

Castleton struck first with a goal by Adam Rosati, but Maine Maritime took away the early momentum with three goals in the first period. Down 3-1 to start the second, the Spartans got fired up and scored three unanswered goals from Matt Varney, Ian Scaglione and Chad Quirion. That gave Castleton a 4-3 lead at the half-way point.

The Spartans started off the second half of the game sluggish, giving up the lead to a hungry Maine Maritime squad. Down 6-4 in the early minutes of the final stanza, Robbie Scanlon got his team to within one with his first goal of what would be a breakout day.

Each team scored two more times, and the Spartans had less than three minutes left to keep their season alive. At the 2:23 mark, Scanlon scored to tie the game at 8-8, sending this hard-fought semifinal into overtime.

After giving the Spartan’s season another five minutes, Scanlon pulled off the hat-trick with the game-winning goal. Castleton won the semifinal game 9-8 and would now face rival and number one seed Mount Ida College in a rematch of last year’s finals to determine the NAC champion.

Mount Ida was first to get on the scoreboard and added another goal to have a 2-0 lead early in the game. The Spartans needed some life early on, which they got from a Robbie Scanlon goal to trail 2-1 after the first period.

Unfortunately for Castleton, the Mustangs began to control the pace of the game and put constant pressure on senior goalie Avram Feld. Mount Ida scored four goals in the second period and continued to find the net, giving them their third straight NAC title with a 16-3 victory.

The loss dropped Castleton’s final record to 10-5.