The game is "our biggest win in my time," said head coach Peter Lasagna. "Charlie Fay and Jack Allard played like first-team All-Americans. We stayed poised through their pressure. We owned time of possession, and we did a nice job dictating tempo against a team that thrives on a chaotic pace."

The Bobcats scored six straight goals to a 3-2 first quarter deficit into an 8-3 lead in the middle of the third quarter. Tufts pushed back with three in a row, but the Bobcats were able to finish the job, out-scoring the Jumbos 4-2 in the fourth.

The five goals were a career-high for Fay (Falmouth, Maine). The 6-foot-4 midfielder has scored 19 goals in five games since missing the first six contests of the season.

Allard (Ridgewood, N.J.) scored four goals with an assist and senior Jack Strain (Montclair, N.J.) added two goals and one assist for Bates, which won its third in a row -- all against NESCAC opponents -- and fourth in its last five games. Junior Joe Faria (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) made 11 saves in the Bobcat net. Bates is now 7-4 overall and 4-4 in the league.

Tufts, which dropped to 10-1 and 6-1 NESCAC, were led by two goals each from Peter Gill and Austin Carbone.

The game saw the return of Jumbo senior co-captain Cole Bailey after missing eight contests with an injury. He assisted the game's first goal by Gill 38 seconds into the action. Fay netted his first two to put Bates up 2-1, but Carbone and Garrett Clarke gave the Jumbos a 3-2 edge at the end of one.

Bates started its six-goal run at 13:07 of the second quarter, when Fay scored again to knot the score at 3-3. The Bobcats would blank Tufts 3-0 in the second and then score the first three goals of the second half to lead 8-3 on Strain's strike with 6:56 on the third-quarter clock. Fay scored three times while Allard and sophomore Kyle Weber (Chagrin Falls, Ohio) both had a goal and an assist during Bates' six-goal span.

The Bobcats held the Jumbos scoreless for a 28:06 stretch from late in the first until late in the third. 

However, Tufts came back to close the margin to 8-6 by the end of the third quarter as both Carbone and Connor Bilby scored and assisted goals.

After the teams traded goals, making it 9-7 Bates, the Bobcats got the next two by Allard and Strain to go up 11-7 with 8:29 remaining in the fourth. The visitors were then able to keep the margin at four until John Uppgren, the NESCAC's leading scorer, scored his first goal of the game for Tufts with 3:59 left. However, when Bates junior defenseman Stefano Stadlinger (Summit, N.J.) hit Allard in stride with a pass that traveled more than half the field, and Allard scored at 2:42 for a 12-8 lead, the visitors had the victory sealed up.

Sophomore Sam Francis (Newburyport, Mass.) won 10 of 22 faceoffs and gained nine ground balls, buoying Bates' efforts to keep the ball away from Tufts' deadly attack. When the Jumbos did have the ball, Faria played "great," said Lasagna, while Bates' close defense, with sophomore Fred Ulbrick (Fairfield, Conn.), junior Colby Spehler (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.), sophomore Charlie Gravina (Fair Haven, N.J.) and junior Stefano Stadlinger (Summit, N.J.), "was outstanding."

Junior defenseman Ken O'Friel (Scarsdale, N.Y.) caused two turnovers and picked up three groundballs for Bates. The Bobcats finished with slight advantages in shots (37-36) and groundballs (32-28), and they held the Jumbos scoreless on three extra-man opportunities in the first half.

Alex Salazar made 12 saves and Tyler Carbone caused two turnovers for Tufts defensively.

The Bobcats' seventh win this season matches the 2013 squad, which finished 7-7, for the team's most wins since 2006, when Bates finished 9-5.

The Bobcats entered this week's New England Division III rankings at No. 8 (Tufts is the unanimous No. 1) and earned votes in the USILA national poll as well.

Bates will play at Garcelon Field for the first time in four games on Saturday, hosting No. 6 nationally ranked Middlebury at 1pm.