One year ago, then junior Cal Lambert could do little more than root for his teammates as he slowly battled back from a torn ACL suffered midway through his sophomore campaign.
This year, as a senior, Lambert scored four goals to help the Black Knights win the Patriot League tournament with a 14-7 victory over Loyola and earn the league’s much-coveted automatic NCAA for the first time since 2023.
Army will travel to State College, Pa. to meet Penn State in the first-round game next weekend. In 2023, the Black Knights upset defending champion Maryland 16-15 in the first round before falling to Penn State in the quarterfinals 10-9 when the tying goal was ruled to have entered the net after time had expired.
Lambert well remembers the last time Army won the Patriot League crown. He scored eight goals in 15 games in his freshman year and seemed on the path to a long and successful career at West Point. But he suffered his year-ending injury midway through his sophomore season in a game at North Carolina and saw very little time on the field during his junior year.
“Senior year, the coaches trusted me and put me back at my spot and I was able to play with Evan Plunkett and Aiden Weisenborn and all those guys,” Lambert said. “They put me in great positions and I got back to my game.”
After scoring just 10 goals in the regular season, Lambert, who was named the tournament’s most valuable player, exploded for two scores in the semifinal victory over Lehigh Friday and the four goals against Loyola.
“This is a definitely a great feeling,” Lambert added. “I did it for the bloodline of Army lacrosse. One of our core values is family, toughness and tradition. I am just following in that tradition. I did it for all those guys.”
Army played textbook lacrosse to knock off the second-seeded Greyhounds. The Black Knights dominated the offensive zone with long possessions and pinpoint shots on goal. The defense kept Loyola away from the net and when the Greyhounds did get a shot off, Sean Byrne, who was named the tournament’s best goalie, stopped 11 of the 16 shots he faced in three-plus quarters of action.
Perhaps, most importantly, Army owned the faceoff X (Robert Simone and Caleb Caldwell won 18 of 24 faceoffs).
“It came down to a game of possession. I think (the faceoff specialists) won us the ball at the faceoff X,” said Byrne. “We were able to do our job on the defensive end to set the offense up the best way we could and give them the ball as much as we could.”
Many wondered whether the Black Knights had the talent to win the Patriot League crown, especially after losing three games midway through the season. After that stretch, Army won seven straight games.
“We talk about it all the time, you get better from a win and you get better from a loss,” Byrne said. “I think for us those three losses, ultimately we were able to take something away from each one of them and ultimately led us to where we are now.”
The question is whether Army can continue to improve as the team enters the next phase of the season.
“When you look at our offense, we have senior leadership like Evan, Cal and Gunnar (Fellows) as a young guy just look at them and see how they approach everything whether it is practice, lifting or even a meeting,” said sophomore attack Brayden Fountain. “Just how serious they are, how selfless they are with the ball. The younger guys we are playing mature right now because we are just watching them emulating what they do.”
Army coach Joe Alberici is just hopeful the Black Knights keep playing as they have the last six weeks.
“I just thought our guys followed the script right from the get-go,” said Alberici. “What I mean is that from an offensive perspective they were able to play fast but still play deep into the shot clocks. We were able to get the ball inside and the level of passing was just absolutely elite today. It was just a real dominating performance. Great job on defense end and with Rob Simone and Caleb Caldwell at the faceoff X really stepping up their game and manufacturing more possessions for us.
Alberici said, “This was a team win and it is what these guys have been doing from the beginning. They are an unselfish group, play together and they know how to get on to the next play. They just try to stay in the present momentum and you saw that today.”
