After a sweet 7-4 victory over Bowdoin in the semifinal round, the Mules had to rally from a five goal deficit late in the final game to tie Williams College at 13-13 to force overtime. Jeff Boyer ’00 put the tying goal in the Ephmen’s net with just 16 seconds remaining in regulation time.

Matt Williams ’99 became Colby’s all-time leading scorer in men’s lacrosse and played in four ECAC tournaments.

Lacrosse as it’s now played at Colby, which is in the upper echelon of Division III teams, is a finesse game, and turnovers are relatively rare. So the opponents’ ability to get possession at the beginning of overtime gave them a decided advantage. “If we had gotten the ball, we would have won,” Williams said. “Before that we had scored on five consecutive shots.” But 45 seconds into the overtime, Colby’s season ended on a disappointing note when an opposing midfielder put one by standout rookie goalie John Shea ’02. The team finished the season with an 11-4 record.

Still, Colby players and fans left the game proud of what this year’s team accomplished, said coach David Zazzaro.

For Matt Williams it was the end of an incredible college lacrosse career. In four seasons he recorded 226 points (goals and assists), smashing the school’s 18-year-old scoring record (Josh Burns ’81 had 187 points). Williams did it with grace and humility, Zazzaro said. “It’s been a real treat having him for four years.

Williams also was captain of the soccer team this year, but soccer coach Mark Serdjenian ’73 only had him for three years. Serdjenian says it’s “triply sweet” that Colby ended up with this particular scholar-athlete because in the 1995 Bowdoin-Colby soccer game, Williams wore black as a first-semester Bowdoin freshman. He transferred to Colby that January. He played various positions to help the soccer team make the ECAC tournament for the last two years, and this spring he won the College’s Norman R. White Award for leadership, inspiration and sportsmanship.

Williams graduated with honors in American studies, having written an honors thesis on the stories of Raymond Carver. Charles Bassett (American studies), who directed Williams’s honors project, said it was a fine literary, historical and sociological analysis and earned an A, “which I don’t always give.

“Matt is a tremendous kid,” said Bassett.

A high school All-American in lacrosse at Cape Elizabeth (Maine) High School, Williams was an impact player right away in college, and he actually was more the focus of Colby’s offense during his first two seasons than this year, Zazzaro says.

“A bunch of us got to start as freshmen,” said Williams. “We took our bumps and bruises but we made the playoffs all four years.”

That early success improved recruiting, and Williams unselfishly adjusted to a team offense in his junior and senior seasons as more and better underclassmen joined the ranks. “He helped establish a higher standard, and he’s delivered every year,” Zazzaro said.

Ten members of this year’s ECAC Division III New England Lacrosse Championship runner-up team graduated, including Williams and his fellow captains Mark Melander and Brad Selig. “You don’t really replace a guy like Matt, or the other seniors either,” said Zazzaro. “Every year we’ve got holes to fill. I think the kids on next year’s team will be ready to step up, and we’ve got some good freshmen coming in. Each year it keeps growing. We’re the beneficiaries of teams who played in the past. This year is the product of a long tradition, but it isn’t the end of it.”