Men’s lacrosse named regular season conference co-champions

Steve Morano
MSMU Class of 2024

(5/2023) On Sunday, April 23rd, the Mount Saint Mary’s men’s lacrosse team was named co-champions of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference as their record was tied 7-2 with Manhattan. A loss to Sienna on April 22nd cemented their No. 2 seed status as they begin their pursuit of a inaugural MAAC title on Thursday, May 4th when the first round of the conference tournament commences. This unprecedented first season of success in the new conference comes with a slew of both academic honors and conference honors for the players and coaches of the Mountaineers.

The season started out rough for head coach Tom Gravante and his players as they ended 1-6 in their first seven games, with their only win coming in a 13-10 win away against the New Jersey Institute of Technology. But this wasn’t the full story, as their schedule was packed out with games against Navy, Towson, UMBC and No. 12 Delaware, all powerhouses in an already-richly talented area for lacrosse in the United States. A 9-3 loss in the first conference game of the year to the assumptive co-champions, Manhattan, set a bad first game in the MAAC for the Mountaineers. But this was an outlier in the grand scheme of their season, as they went onto win their remaining games by a record of 7-1, winning seven in a row and outscoring their opponents 116-83 in the process.

A statement win for the team came away at VMI, where the Mount won out 20-5 against the Keydets. Senior, Cormac Giblin bagged a hattrick with Kyle Cullen, Kelly Gouin, William Vandergrift, and Noah Persing all contributing two goals a piece to the win in Lexington. Limiting the Keydets to only five goals was in part due to the shot stopper Griffin McGinley, who made five total saves during the game.

McGinley has been an outlier for the Mountaineers this season, as the junior has not only played in all fifteen games for the Mount this year but he has started all of them as well. He has notched a record of 8-7 in the crease, as he has 140 saves from 547 shots faced and a save percentage of .458 in 852 minutes played for the Mountaineers this season. Senior, Andrew Preston has also filled in for McGinley from time to time as he has notched 7 saves from 28 shots faced.

On offense, the Mount is very aggressive, with 165 goals coming from 339 shots on goal. They have also racked up 97 assists on offense to give their shot takers better opportunity within the third half of the field. Graduate student, Jared McMahon, has scored 32 goals and 14 assists during the regular season, accruing 46 points in total. He has 68 shots on target and .687% shots on target percentage, making him a menace in front of goal. Another graduate student, Kelly Gouin, has scored 26 goals this regular season, with 6 goals coming against LIU on March 18th and 5 goals coming against Quinnipiac on April 1st.

Senior, Cormac Giblin, graduate student, Jake Krieger and freshman, TJ Gravante all rounded out the top half of team scoring with 17, 15 and 13 goals, respectively. Gravante is a very interesting case, specifically because his shots on goal percentage of 615% is the sixth highest on the team. If the freshman keeps it up, he will be a useful asset for the coaching staff in the next three years to help build on the offensive side of the ball. This comes with a common theme for the Mountaineers this year, as the overall team SOG% rests at .551, almost matching their opponents percentage of .558.

In the defensive portion of the field, the Mount has been ruthless in conference games, causing 146 turnovers in games while limiting their opponents to 126 turnovers in the regular season, advertently helping the offense get the ball back faster in redirection. However, the team as a whole turned the ball over 272 times, to their opponents 260 turnovers against, but this is overall team statistics and not a strictly defensive stat. They were forced into 522 groundballs; this was another limitation that teams forced them into, as the Mountaineers only forced their opponents into 422 groundballs in the regular season.

Overall, the team had many highs this regular season. With everything from points per game, goals, shots, and shots on goal all going up this season compared to seasons prior. The shots and shots on goal high are interesting in that 55 shots were taken by the Mountaineers on two separate occasions against NJIT and Sacred Heart and a high of 39 shots on goal against VMI. The Mount also had seventeen turnovers against Canisius on April 12th, but the rebuttal to that would be Delaware forcing them into 27 turnovers in a single game stand. This is acceptable, especially when you factor in that Delaware is a nationally ranked program and are 6-0 in the Colonial Athletic Association this year.

With a first successful season in the books for Gravante and his players came a slew of conference awards in the process. Freshman, TJ Gravante and junior, Jackson Phillips were named to the Rookie’s second team. Five players were named to the First Team All-MAAC team, Jake Krieger, Conor Beals, Steven Schmidt, Jared McMahon and Mitchell Dunham, with Schmidt winning Long Stick Midfielder of the Year, Dunham being named Defensive Player of the Year and Beals being named Face-off Specialist of the Year. The crux of it all was in TJ Gravante winning MAAC Rookie of the Year, in the process of a very award-laden team.

A 8-7 record on the year and a 7-2 conference record leads head coach Gravante, his coaching staff and his players to the No. 2 seed into the conference playoffs starting in early May, where they will most likely play the likes of Sienna, Marist, or a lower seeded team in the conference tournament in pursuit of an unprecedented first year success for Mount lacrosse in the MAAC. With the future looking bright with players such as Gravante and other recruits poised to come in next year and rebuff the team after a slew of exits from graduate students, the men’s lacrosse program is in good hands.