Another One: Salisbury's Untraditional Route to its 13th National Championship

PHILADELPHIA — Salisbury, the winningest program in NCAA tournament history and a team that boasted a 22-1 record, walked onto the grass field at Lincoln Financial Field as the underdog in the Division III national championship game.

The Sea Gulls, which had won 12 NCAA titles before Sunday’s game, lined up against a Tufts team that carried an unbeaten record and the nation’s leading offense into the contest. The Jumbos had torn through their competition, scoring over 20 goals per game en route to another national title game clash with Salisbury.

Jim Berkman and the Gulls didn’t much mind. They just went to work.

Salisbury held Tufts scoreless in the first quarter, providing enough cushion to hold off the Jumbos when their offense came alive in the second half. The Sea Gulls picked up timely goals in the third and fourth quarters to seal a 17-12 victory and the 13th national championship in school history —their first since 2017. Salisbury tied Hobart for the most national championships in Division III history.

Nicholas Ransom made 16 saves to keep Tufts shooters in check, and Brice Bromwell scored four goals to lead the Salisbury offense.

“Our journey to here has been pretty difficult,” Berkman said. “We didn’t do it the traditional lacrosse way. We shut off certain people and slid to people a little differently. We had to do that, and credit to our guys for executing.”

The Salisbury win breaks a 2-2 tie in NCAA title games between the two Division III giants — a series in which each team has traded wins.

“When you have Coach Berkman on your side, you never feel like an underdog,” said the Sea Gulls’ leading scorer, Cross Ferrara.

While Tufts was the regular season No. 1 for much of the season, pummeling opponents en route to a NESCAC championship and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, the Jumbos could not find the offense that made them special early in Sunday’s game.

Tufts coach Casey D’Annolfo credited Ransom’s big saves in the first half as a major factor in the final result.

“I was seeing the ball really well, and the defense was just letting me see the shots I wanted to see,” Ransom said. “In that first quarter, with no shot on cage, that’s incredible. Credit to our defense and offense for setting the tone for the game.”

The Sea Gulls’ defensive unit, which lost All-American Thomas Ballard to an ACL injury in the CLC championship on May 7, kept the Jumbos’ offense off balance throughout the first 15 minutes. Tufts committed eight turnovers in the first quarter, six of them caused by six different defensemen.

Simba Makawa faceguarded Tufts’ leading scorer, Jack Boyden, throughout, limiting his ability to take over. Jackson Woodward, who switched from SSDM to defense in lieu of Ballard’s injury, forced a turnover in the quarter.

Salisbury added a defensive middie to its offensive unit early in the game, hoping to limit Tufts’ transition opportunities. In turn, the Sea Gulls turned defense into offense, with defenseman John DeFazio chipping in a pole goal.

All told, Tufts did not record a shot on goal in the first quarter and scored just four goals in the first half. The 12 goals was the Jumbos’ season low, part of a stretch in which Salisbury held Colorado College, Amherst, Washington and Lee, Christopher Newport and Tufts to only 49 goals in five games.

“Your best defenseman blows his knee out in the conference championship and you throw a pole in Jackson Woodward’s hands; I’m not going to lie to you, I was a little nervous how we were going to respond,” Berkman said. “We played our best defense in this stretch against some great, great players. We didn’t do it the traditional lacrosse way.”

Salisbury led 10-4 at halftime, but the Tufts offense didn’t stay quiet. Kurt Bruun was the catalyst for the Jumbos with Boyden shut off, scoring the final two goals of the half to give his team momentum.

Tufts scored five goals in the third quarter, including a wild one-handed shot from Bruun and another seven seconds later from faceoff man Mason Kohn, to eventually cut the deficit to 11-9 with 1:26 left in the period.

When Salisbury needed a boost to prevent an epic Tufts comeback, it looked to options like Bromwell, Jude Brown (three goals) and Luke Nestor (three goals). The trio combined for a three-goal run that put the Sea Gulls back up by five with just over 12 minutes remaining.

Ferrara, the nation’s leading goal scorer, finished off the effort with two fourth-quarter goals. The sixth-year senior entered a Salisbury program fresh off its 2017 championship and leaves as the Sea Gulls’ all-time leading scorer and a national champion.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Ferrara said. “There’s been a lot of nights and mornings working. Now that this has finally come to fruition, it’s unbelievable.”