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Tufts men's lacrosse coach Casey DāAnnolfo reflects on a rare loss that ended a 42-game winning streak. Despite the setback, his team remains a strong contender for a third consecutive NCAA Division III championship.
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Casey DāAnnolfo had a rare night this week, the kind of tossing and turning a coach experiences after a loss.
āYeah, it hurt for sure,ā DāAnnolfo said, after his Tufts menās lacrosse teamās winning streak ended at 42. āI didnāt sleep very well on Wednesday night because you do feel like you should win every game. So when you donāt win ⦠even when you do win, youāre still pretty hard on yourself.ā
DāAnnolfo, who played at Conard High in West Hartford, where his father was a legendary multisport coach, is as conditioned to winning as any coach in collegiate athletics. Since taking over the program at Tufts, where he played from 2003-06, DāAnnolfoās record is 160-19 after a 21-11 victory over Middlebury in the New England Small College Athletic Conference quarterfinals Saturday. For reference, DāAnnolfoās winning percentage, .894, is even higher than Geno Auriemmaās .886.
āGenoās got a few championships on me, though,ā DāAnnolfo said. But Tufts has won back-to-back NCAA Division III championships, and is now No. 2 in the country in NCAA Power Index, just leapfrogging by Bowdoin, the team that ended the streak with a 14-12 victory Wednesday. Wesleyan is third in the NPI.
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āWe had a successful regular season,ā DāAnnolfo said, ābut we have to ālevel upā each time we play. Your regular-season effort isnāt going to be good enough in the conference tournament. Your effort in the conference tournament isnāt going to be good enough to win at the national level. Thatās what weāre trying to impress upon our team.ā
DāAnnolfoās father, Frank, coached several sports during his long career in West Hartford, winning state championships in soccer (1970) and hockey (1985), in which he was instrumental in bring the no-fighting rules. This month he was inducted posthumously into the Connecticut High School Hockey Hall of Fame.
Casey DāAnnolfo has a coaching record of 160-19 at Tufts.
Tufts men's lacrosse has won back-to-back NCAA Division III championships.
Bowdoin ended Tufts' 42-game winning streak with a 14-12 victory.
Tufts is currently ranked No. 2 in the NCAA Power Index.

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Casey, too, has a multisport background, playing football, basketball and lacrosse during his high school and collegiate career. At Taft School in Watertown, he coached football and girls basketball as well as lacrosse. So like his father, Casey coaches people, as much as he coaches a sportās Xās and Oās.
āSo Iāve coached a lot of sports, and the idea of coaching people is something I put a lot of value in,ā he said. āIāve been in different locker rooms, and I try to incorporate different drills and philosophies and strategies into what we do in lacrosse.ā
DāAnnolfo took over the successful program from Mike Daly at his alma mater in 2017 and has led the Jumbos to every NCAA Tournament played since. In 2023, Tufts was unbeaten until losing the NCAA final to Salisbury. In ā24, after losing in the NESCAC tournament, Tufts went on to win the national championship, beating RIT in Philadelphia. Last season, the Jumbos ran the table, completing their perfect season with a 25-7 victory over Dickinson at nearby Gillette Stadium.
āThe first time, there was a lot of relief, honestly,ā DāAnnolfo said. āYou know that what youāre doing is right. For me, the one thing is understand that because we are a spring sport, as soon as the championship happens, the guys go home. When weāre on the journey, we really try to relish the time together because when itās over, itās over.ā
DāAnnolfo identifies skilled players with maybe one trait separating them from the top Division I programs, āmaybe a step too slow, or two inches too short or they are a late bloomer,ā he said. āBut they have an academic interest maybe some of those schools canāt fulfill.ā
With its academic reputation, Tufts appeals to students from far and wide to itās Medford, Mass., campus. The current roster has players from 20 different states, with a few from Connecticut. DāAnnolfo got one, freshman Jules Capone, from his alma mater, Conard. The Jumboās starting goalie, Jack Old, prepped at Taft. The Jumbos have outscored their opponents, 266-142, as Jack Regnery (43 goals, 31 assists) and Brooks Hauser (46 and 14) lead the offense.
Tufts plays a free-wheeling style of lacrosse, behind-the-back slinging, for example, when thatās the most effective way to shoot or pass the ball, and high-energy on the sidelines.
āOur identity, we want to play fast, play hard and make people see that weāre having a lot of fun when we play,ā DāAnnolfo said. āWhether itās the sideline celebrations that have gone viral or the flair that we play with, itās a unique style and a pretty unique brand. The way we train is a little bit different, the guys have a lot of freedom to use moves that might be considered flashy, but we practice them so much, theyāre not. Itās a flair for the dramatic, we play at a pretty intense tempo.ā
With the World Cup approaching, this yearās final had to be moved from Foxborough to Charlottesville, Va.
DāAnnolfo, his wife Sarah and their three children are settled near Tuftsā campus, and coaching D-III clearly agrees with him.
āItās the most pure form of college athletics,ā he said. āItās not semi-pro. Kids come here, we put up a Venn diagram, with academics, location and competitiveness and we feel like weāre the only school across all divisions that can be in the center of that Venn diagram. We really do preach that balance of academics, athletics and social life.ā
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Former UConn womenās basketball standout Dorka Juhasz, who sat out the last WNBA season, was the EuroLeague MVP, after averaging 12 points, shooting 52 percent from the floor, with eight rebounds, 1.3 assists and one steal per game for Galatasaray Cagdas Faktoring, which is based in Istanbul, and reached the Euro finals. At 26, she is the youngest player to win the award.
She is expected to rejoin the WNBAās Minnesota Lynx this year. Another former Husky, Gabby Williams, was EuroLeagueās Defensive Player of the Year for the third time. She played for Fenerbahce Opet, also based in Turkey, and will be playing for Golden State in The W this season.
*Last December, former UHart baseball player Jackson Olson, now a viral sensation with the Savannah Bananas, posted a āboyfriend applicationā on TikTok. This week, Olson, a New Milford native, and Maggie Sajak of Wheel of Fortune fame, shared a photo of themselves at Disney World with the caption āapplications closed.ā ⦠So are they ā_N A R_LAT_ONSH_P?ā ⦠Buy a couple of vowels and solve the puzzle.
*Hartford Athletic keeper Antony Siaha is leading the USL in saves with 26 in seven matches.
*The UConn softball team won 11 in a row, and 14 of the last 16 games since March 27 to get back to .500 at 24-24. The Huskies are in the thick of the Big East race at 13-4 after beating Creighton on Friday for coach Laura Valentinoās 200th career win. No sophomore jinx for shortstop Cat Petteys, the Big East Freshman of the Year in 2025. After getting three doubles and four RBI vs. Creighton, sheās hitting .386 with 17 homers and 51 RBI in 48 games.
*Not surprising, CCSU menās basketball is losing its top players in the transfer portal. Darin Smith Jr., 6 feet 7, the NEC Player of the Year, left New Britain for Rutgers, a few months after scoring 21 points in the Blue Devils shocking upset of the Scarlet Knights. āHe fits the competitive mindset weāre building here,ā Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell said. Point guard Jay Rogers left Central for Penn State.
*How did ballcaps with upside-down lettering become a thing? See āem everywhere. Maybe the Mets should wear them in games as a distress signal. ⦠At least the losing streak ended at 12 and their fans in Connecticut can avoid the interminable Whitestone Bridge backup and get to selected games at Citi Field by boat from Stamford starting this weekend, via Seastreak Ferries. A Mets game and a three-hour tour ⦠what could go wrong?
*Jeff Hamilton, Yaleās all-time scoring leader, is coming back to Ingalls Rink. Hamilton, who graduated in 2001 and played 10 years in the NHL with Chicago, Toronto and Carolina, has been developing amateur talent as co-owner of the Connecticut Junior Rangers.
*Some huge news for UConn menās hockey this week, as top-line stars Joey Muldowney and Jake Richard delayed their pro careers another season and committed to return next year. They will be captains, along with Mike Murtagh. In the portal, Huskies coach Mike Cavanaugh got rising sophomore Jeremy Loranger, an NHL draft pick (Columbus) who had seven goals, 12 assists at Omaha as a freshman.
*At UConn last year, Caleb Shpur, a grad student from Litchfield County, led all Division I centerfielders in defensive runs saved (19.66). In over 241 collegiate games at D-III Endicott and UConn, he posted a .432 on-base percentage, stealing 136 bases with an 86.7 success rate. Though Shpur, 24, was undrafted and out of pro baseball, the Tigers, eyeballed those metrics, and signed him to a minor-league deal this week.
*The Doc Boisoneau Northern Connecticut Chapter of the National Football Foundation is honoring 21 football scholar-athletes, and officials TJ Calabrese and Bruce Brenia, at its banquet on May 17 at AquaTurf in Southington at noon. They will also honor the life of longtime coach Jude Kelly, who died in February, namesake of the NFFās Coach of the Year award. For tickets and information, contact chapter president Tim Feshler at tfeshler@avon.k12.ct.us
*The UHart vs. Western Connecticut baseball game at Dunkinā Park Friday morning was played to a crowd of more than 5,000, which has to be the biggest crowd for a Division III baseball game this year, with help from the weather and kids attending the Yard Goatsā Baseball in Education program. āWhat better way to have college baseball players get a big ballpark experience?ā Goats president Tim Restall said. The Hawks actually practiced with crowd noise to prepare, but WesCon won, 7-6.
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There was once a fan at Wrigley Field who rode Cubs All-Star Ron Santo unmercifully day after day and it was having an effect. Manager Leo Durocher, as he related the story in his memoirs, arranged to speak with the fan privately and asked what he had against Santo. Nothing, the fan said. He loved Santo and the Cubs, wanted everyone to do well. āThen leave Santo alone,ā Durocher urged. ⦠Iām reminded of this story frequently in covering college athletics in the social media age. Sure, folks want players to come to their school, thrive at their school, stay at their school, then show their so-called āpassionā by posting hateful things every time a shot is missed. The families usually keep the receipts, so maybe one should think before hitting that post button.