HANOVER — Two thousand, five hundred and seventy-six days and counting.
That’s how long it’s been since the Dartmouth College men’s lacrosse team won an Ivy League game. The Big Green’s wait continues after Saturday’s 23-6 loss to visiting Yale at Scully-Fahey Field. With the setback, the hosts broke their own league mark of 31 consecutive losses, set between 1989-93.
“Turnovers and fouls in the middle of the field today were our downfall,” said seventh-year head coach Brendan Callahan, who won his first Ivy League game in March 2015 but hasn’t enjoyed another.
“We knew coming in that Yale was a team that likes to run. If we weren’t putting the ball in the back of the net, we were going to have to get back in transition and play defense.”
Dartmouth forged a 2-2 tie as the first quarter expired but surrendered eight consecutive goals en route to a 10-3 halftime deficit. The loss dropped the hosts to 4-6 overall and 0-3 in league play, while Yale improved to 7-2 and 3-1.
Big Green goaltender Daniel Hincks, who’d been attracting national notice with strong play, struggled badly, allowing 19 goals while making six saves. The 6-foot-5 senior was pulled in the third quarter for 5-8 freshman Mason Morel, who made five saves and allowed four goals.
“I wanted to see what the young guy could do,” Callahan said of a player selected second-team All-Georgia during last year’s high school season.
Yale won 19 of 30 faceoffs, although Dartmouth’s Mitchell Myers often clamped down on the ball first. After the junior pulled it free from his opponent, however, the Bulldogs were often the team that corralled the rubber orb.
“It becomes a 3-on-3 ground ball and it requires grit, skill and athleticism,” Callahan said. “They were pushing us around off the ball and were a little more athletic than us.”
Dartmouth has clearly improved during the past decade and is no longer a team that has frequent difficulty passing and catching under pressure. However, the Ivy League may well be the sport’s best NCAA Division I conference, with all its other teams ranked in this week’s top 20 poll.
Trying to catch up to Princeton (1), Yale (4), Pennsylvania (5), Harvard (7), Cornell (9) and Brown (19) is difficult for a Big Green program ranked 31st out of 73 teams in the division.
“We’ve made so much progress, but we’ve got that much more to go to be able to compete week in and week out,” said Callahan, whose team lost its Ivy opener at Harvard, 19-10, and fell to visiting Cornell, 8-7, last weekend. “You almost need to be a top-15 team to win games in our league.”
The coach said COVID-19 issues that wiped out the 2020 season and limited his team to one game last spring set the program back.
“You get better through recruiting and player development, and the last two years have hurt us there,” he said. “We have to recruit at a higher level. Our freshman class has two top-100 recruits, and Yale’s has four.”
Dartmouth, which visits Princeton next weekend, started three freshmen and three seniors Saturday. The Big Green scored once in five man-advantage situations while allowing the visitors to go 5-of-6.
“Today, we just didn’t have it,” Callahan said. “I think we’re much closer to (Yale) than we showed. I’d love to do this one again, but that’s not the way the world works.”
Notes: The Bulldogs successfully cleared their end on all 22 attempts while Dartmouth went 19-of-25. … Yale held a 34-31 ground-ball advantage and took 62 shots to the Big Green’s 37. … A pair of Bulldogs goaltenders combined for 11 saves. … Dartmouth’s victories this season are against Bryant (ranked No. 36), Vermont (49), St. John’s (53) and Siena (56). … Hincks’ father, Ben, played lacrosse at Yale during the 1980s. He’s now a Boston-area attorney. … Dartmouth has three times shared the Ivy League title. Each time — in 1963, 1965 and 2003 — the Big Green stood atop the standings alongside Princeton. Dartmouth has never won an Ancient Eight crown outright. Only the Big Green and Harvard have failed to capture the title alone… Attendance was announced at 425. … One of three Dartmouth-Hitchcock physicians working the game was former Big Green football star Timmy McManus, who recently celebrated the birth of his first child. … Dartmouth last beat Yale in 2009. … The Dartmouth sports information office’s account of the contest contained no mention of the record broken Saturday.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.