Saint Anselm lacrosse battled adversity throughout the year to return to NCAA tourney

MANCHESTER – With the season on the line, Matt Lemay was just trying to make a play.

The sophomore attackman scooped up a groundball, and with the Saint Anselm College men’s lacrosse team trailing Saint Michael’s by two goals with under two mintues remaining, he looked for a chance to keep the season going.

It was a season that was hit by tragedy before it even began, and was battered by adversity at almost every turn. And yet, with time running out, Lemay did what he and the Hawks had done all year – he kept fighting.

Lemay fought through his defender, and despite losing his footing and falling to the ground, he put a shot on goal that seemed to surprise goalie Nate Gulachenski. The ball found the back of the net to make it a one-goal game with 1:40 remaining.

“I had it and I saw an open area of space and I was like ‘I’ve got to go do it,’” Lemay said. “I just got in there, rolled, nobody came to me, and I just shot it as fast as I could. I was falling, and we were trying to hit bounces all day on this goalie, and I hit one and it just luckily went in.”

The Hawks got a chance to tie things up, as Quinn Gannon won the ensuing faceoff, but after a Hawks timeout with 1:32 to play, they turned the ball over and were never able to get it back, falling to the Purple Knights, 9-8, in the first-round of the NCAA Division II tournament on May 10.

“I just thought we made too many mistakes, especially in between the lines,” Hawks coach Drew Bourdeau said. “I think that’s really what it came down to. We were winning possessions at the faceoffs.

“There’s a couple of those momentum swings where we’re getting big stops and then turning the ball over immediately, and we just didn’t get enough touches when we needed to. They play a really aggressive style. We prepared all week for it, but it’s different when they kind of punch you in the mouth. That goalie played lights out.”

Gulachenski finished with 15 saves, and after allowing 13 goals when the Hawks won the regular-season meeting back on April 1, the Purple Knights held Saint Anselm to its second-lowest offensive output of the year.

“I give all the credit to them,” Hawks junior captain Jacob Klepacki said. “They’re a geat team, they just played hard. We were definitely sloppy in between the lines. But I couldn’t be more proud of our guys. From the first whistle to the end, we battled and we gave all we had.”

Klepacki could have been talking about the tournament game or the 2026 season as a whole for Saint Anselm, given everything the program dealt with from the start of the year.

On Jan. 6, senior Maverick Lyon was shot by local police who were responding to a domestic disturbance in Albany, Ore., his hometown. While Lyon was later determined to be an “inocent person” by the Benton County District Attorney’s Office, he was hospitalized for weeks.

“Maverick is everyone’s best friend,” Klepacki said. “What happened to him was absolutely tragic, but I think something we could take away from this season is the brotherhood that we’re able to make. We all want gold trophies, but at the end of the day, it’s about the connections you make, and this is truly the most special team I’ve been a part of, just how close everyone is from top to bottom.”

The Hawks were hit with other setbacks to personnel through injuries during the season, starting with senior defensive midfielder Colby Goodchild, who was a USA Lacrosse All-American in 2025. Then on April 8, in a win against AIC, senior attackman Chris Claffin was hurt and lost for the rest of the season.

Add in other minor injuries during the spring, and Bourdeau was looking to quite a few different players to step up.

“I think what it really came down to is just the injuries,” the coach said. “What I said at the end there, we did a fantastic job all year. I’ve never been a part of a team that had this many injuries to our star players, and we did a fantastic job, physically going next man up. It’s really hard to go leadership-wise next man up.”

To top it all off, the Hawks, and the athletic department as a whole, found out on April 22 that the school would be moving to Division III starting on July 1, 2027, leaving the Northeast-10 for the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference.

“The guys did such a fantastic job with that news,” Bourdeau said. “We just said give us everything you have, stay focused until Memorial Day, and then we’ll take care of what we need to take care of on that.

“I said at the end of the game, as much as I want to win this, only one team can. The brotherhood, the never-giving-up attitude, how they responded to all the adversity, it’s just … we’re all about building young me and I’m really just proud of how much they grew in that sense.”