CHESTERTOWN — Washington lost out on its bid for the Centennial Conference’s regular-season title and all that comes with it — including the top seed and home field in next week’s conference tournament — Saturday, April 18 on the Kibler pitch here against Gettysburg.
The No. 12-ranked Bullets dented the scoreboard 53 seconds in and never trailed on the way to a 16-7 victory.
Senior attackman Ethan Kessler scored four goals on four shots and had an assist for G’burg, which improved to 6-1 in the conference with one game remaining [April 25 at home against Franklin & Marshall] and 9-4 overall.
Having clinched a CC tournament berth earlier in the week with a 12-11 sudden victory over Swarthmore, the Shoremen lost for the first time in four games and only the second time in 10 games.
They finish 6-2 in the conference, and are 12-4 overall heading into Friday night’s regular-season finale at No. 7-ranked Salisbury [13-3].
We have to go all the way back to 2014 to find the last time that Washington won six or more conference games and more than nine total games in one season. That year Washington [18-2] was unbeaten in the conference and reached the NCAA Division III semifinals.
The Shoremen are guaranteed a winning season for the first time since 2018.
This also will be the first winning season for John Nostrant ‘86, who came on board as the head coach at his alma mater in May of 2021.
All that’s not nothing, as perspective will show.
But still, the loss on Saturday, which was Senior Day for the Shoremen, stings.
Gettysburg held modest leads of 5-2 after one quarter and 8-6 at the midway point, before scoring the first eight goals of the second half to put the game out of reach.
Washington averted a second-half shutout with junior Jake Laubach’s unassisted goal with 1 minute, 13 seconds remaining for the 16-7 final.
Laubach led the Shoremen with three goals.
Kessler led all players with four goals, including the 100th of his career in the game’s opening minute.
Kessler and Nicholas Limberg gave Gettysburg a 2-0 lead with 11:25 remaining in the first frame.
Talan Behler found the back of the net 2:12 later for the Shoremen.
Washington kept it close, 7-6, with 5:47 remaining before intermission on solo runs from Aiden Ventura and Jake Arcudi in the span of 30 seconds.
Kessler unassisted had the last goal of the second quarter, with 2:23 to go, kicking off a 9-0 run that included the first eight goals of the second half.
