Wesleyan Beats Middlebury, Builds Confidence Ahead of NCAA Tournament

In the quarterfinals of the NESCAC tournament, fifth-seeded Wesleyan traveled to fourth-seeded Amherst. The two teams met a little more than three weeks prior, with the Mammoths prevailing 9-8 in triple overtime.

Cardinals head coach Kim Williams believed that contest was mentally tough on her team. They didn’t play their best or execute when they had the opportunities. It didn’t help that Amherst fought hard.

Williams said they had put more pressure on her players in practice so when they found themselves in a similar situation, they knew what to do. That practice paid off.

Wesleyan survived a fourth-quarter comeback from Amherst and beat the Mammoth in overtime thanks to a goal by Dylan Green, clinching a spot in the NESCAC semifinals.

There reward for coming away with an emotional victory? A rematch with top-seeded Middlebury, who entered the semifinals with a 67-game unbeaten streak dating back to the 2022 NESCAC championship game.

Williams said her team looked forward to the test.

“Our mantra is always, ‘We want the opportunities for the challenge,’” Williams said. “We were really excited for the opportunity to play for another week and get to play a team like Middlebury.”

Wesleyan had played Middlebury 26 times going back to 2001. It had lost every single one. Still, there were reasons for optimism. Despite some lopsided losses early on, Wesleyan has closed the gap in recent years.

Since 2022, Wesleyan played Middlebury six times. Two were decided by only one goal. This was also the third time they played in the NESCAC tournament. While their 2024 title tilt ended 11-5, Middlebury’s 11 goals were the fewest they had scored since losing to Tufts 9-8 in the 2022 NESCAC championship game (their last loss). They also only took 22 shots, their fewest since they took 21 in a victory over Amherst on March 30, 2019.

Heading into their 2025 semifinal matchup, senior captain Kiara Tangney said Wesleyan felt prepared thanks to an in-depth scouting report the coaching staff put together. Defensively, the goal was to stop the offensive threats, particularly Hope Shue, who won NESCAC Offensive Player of the Year for the second consecutive season.

Wesleyan also emphasized winning the draw.

The teams traded goals in the opening quarter with Middlebury edging ahead 4-3. Wesleyan kept going.

The Cardinals scored the first four goals of the second quarter. Tangney scored a free position shot at the 10:36 mark to give the team its first lead of the game.

When she walked up to the spot, she had no nerves. Her mindset was to bury it in the corner, something she’s worked on in practice with goalie Izzy Weintraub.

“Kim Williams is very good about having us do free positions in practice almost every day, and every pre-game practice, we end practice with free position,” she said. “Kim always says to walk up to the line knowing you are going to make the free position. I pride myself in my free positions. I work really hard. I think those are shots that you’ve got to make. I was fortunate to get that free position, and I walked up to the line knowing I can make this shot.”

Despite the run at the beginning of the quarter, Middlebury fought back, and the quarter ended with Wesleyan up one. Tangney told her teammates they were ready to respond and that they knew it was going to be a fight against “an incredible” team like the Panthers.

She told her teammates to trust the scouting report, their preparation and their ability to execute the basics.

It wasn’t just words Tangney delivered. When play resumed, Tangney scored the first goal of the new half.

“I was just trying to get back the momentum,” she said. “I wanted to start the second half strong and show what happened in the first half was not an accident.”

While Wesleyan did enough to stay in front, it wasn’t until the fourth quarter, when Wesleyan scored the first three goals, that it was able to put enough distance between itself and Middlebury.

Tangney said the moment she knew they would win was when Weintraub, who made nine saves, stopped an Anna Spehr shot on the doorstop with 4:50 remaining in the fourth quarter to keep Wesleyan ahead by three.

When the referee blew the final whistle, the first thing Tangney did was run right to Weintraub, the one who’s helped teach her the best places to shoot her free position shots and who texts the team at the beginning of every week, telling them, “Conquer this Monday.”

“She had the ball when time ran out,” she said. “She ran over toward the sideline. I just ran over and jumped on her, and the rest of our team followed. It was such a fun and happy moment. There were tears shed. For the senior class, it was so awesome.”

The victory wasn’t just a major moment for the program. It also put Wesleyan at the center of the lacrosse universe as the team that ended Middlebury’s unbeaten streak that stretched over the course of four seasons.

Williams said when she finally went to her phone, she had over 100 text messages. It was a sign of how much respect Middlebury has garnered over the years. Beating the Panthers, in any game, is a real accomplishment.

“Our team knew we could win that game,” Tangney said. “We might have shocked the nation, but we didn’t shock ourselves.”

Williams wanted her team to enjoy the moment and take it all in, but there wasn’t a lot of time to do that, because in fewer than 24 hours, they’d have to take on Tufts — a third program that had beaten them in the regular season — for the NESCAC championship.

Williams told her players they hadn’t entered the weekend with the goal of beating Middlebury; they entered the weekend with the goal of winning a championship.

Unfortunately, the championship hopes ended against Tufts. The Jumbos jumped out to a 4-0 lead before the Cardinals climbed back to cut the deficit to one going into halftime, but Tufts scored seven of the next eight goals to wrestle the title away.

Williams said even though her team didn’t accomplish what they had set out to do, she was still proud of them for how they competed.

Moving forward, the win against Middlebury and the loss against Tufts are in the past. Wesleyan earned an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament as well as a bye in the first round. She said the NCAA tournament was a new season, and — much like their approach in the NESCAC tournament — they plan to take everything one game at a time.

“We’re excited to be one of the teams chosen to keep playing because we know a lot of teams’ seasons have ended,” Williams said. “What we have guaranteed so far is another week of practice and one more game.”

“We’re definitely ready to reset and keep going,” Tangney said. “I can’t wait to start playing games again. I think it’s going to be a great run for us. We have the confidence, and we have the personnel, and we’re all ready to keep going and make it as far as we can, but it starts on Sunday.”