The Ephs men's lacrosse team fell 14-10 in the Round of 16 against the Wesleyan Cardinals on the road on Sunday afternoon. The team mounted a mid-game comeback after facing a first-half deficit, but ultimately came up short in the second half.

After Williams fell into a 3-0 hole after the first quarter, Jack Sartorius got the team on the board with a bouncing shot just over a minute into the second. Wesleyan would then score three straight goals to take a 6-1 lead.

However, the Ephs fought back over the latter half of the second quarter. First, Will Doran found Sartorius again for another bullet into the back of the net to make it 6-2 with 5:24 left. Then, Ryan Nagle missed an underhand shot, but was given another opportunity off of the rebound and buried it to cut the gap to 6-3 with 4:10 left in the half. Just thirteen seconds later, Tucker Graham sneaked a shot by Wesleyan's goalie to cap off a three-goal run and cut the gap to 6-4.

Wesleyan responded with a late goal before Doran finished a clean wraparound goal with ten seconds left in the half to make it a 7-5 score at halftime.

To open the third quarter, the Ephs built on their momentum. Sartorius picked up a hat-trick with another sweet finish into the top right corner to reduce the team's deficit to 7-6.

Then, after two Wesleyan goals, Sartorius found Nagle on a transition breakaway to cut the gap to 9-7 with under eight minutes left in the third. Quickly thereafter, Sartorius found Timoney who scored an intermediate range goal to close the gap to just one goal, at 9-8.

Unfortunately, from there on out, the Ephs' momentum stalled. The Cardinals would score five goals in a row over the next 20 minutes to gain a stranglehold over the game. Two late Doran finishes with under a minute to go gave the senior a hat-trick and made the final score 14-10.

Offensively, Doran and Sartorius each scored a hat-trick for the Ephs. Doran also led the team with three assists in his final game. Goalie Charlie Medd made 12 saves in the loss.

Even with the loss, the Ephs conclude their season with their strongest postseason run since 2019.