No one would have blamed Jackson Eicher if he would have left the Army men’s lacrosse team after suffering a season-ending torn ACL before the start of the 2023 season. As a sophomore with a growing reputation as a prolific scorer in the small world of college lacrosse, Eicher would have been a hot commodity.
But, leaving the team and his teammates for the opportunity to gain another season of eligibility not offered at Army never entered Eicher’s thought process. Army lacrosse, as with most West Point sports, is a tight brotherhood and nowhere is that more evident than with the current senior lacrosse class.
As coach Joe Alberici loves to point out, 22 players in class of 2025 entered West Point together and amazingly given the ease of transferring these days across all college sports programs, the same 22 still play together and are slated to graduate together in May.
“Between the guys who went to prep school and the direct admits, we have stuck together through all the ups and downs of this lacrosse program,” said Eicher, a 6-4 foot, 220-pound attackman who was the Black Knights leading scorer last season with 37 goals, as well as dishing out 21 assists. “To me this is the greatest group of guys, with tremendous leadership values and quality of character. We show up every day to play for each other and we have one more shot at accomplishing our goals. We do it for our class, the guys who put time into this and for the younger guys on our team and our coaches.”
Eicher was not heavily recruited while at Episcopal High School in Washington D.C., with only Army, Air Force and Richmond offering visits to their campuses. But, he quickly found a home at West Point even after spending a year at the Army Prep.
“From the day I got the offer from Army, I knew it was where I wanted to be,” he said. “Right away, I started to love this place, the players and our relationships, the coaches and the West Point experience. I could not ever have put on a different jersey because of how I feel about this team, this program and the coaching staff.”
Eicher and his teammates will have the chance to write their own final chapter this year and, according to the gurus of college lacrosse, this Army team could be as good as any Black Knight squad in the last 40 or more years.
Starting off on the road against UMass Saturday, The Black Knights are ranked 13th in the nation in the KANE Division I media poll Army is predicted to win the always-treacherous Patriot League. On top of that, Army has dominated the league’s preseason accolades, with senior and three-year starter AJ Pilate picked to be the conference’s most outstanding defensive player, senior Will Coletti named the conference’s outstanding faceoff specialist and junior Evan Plunkett, who had 29 goals and 19 assists last year, named the conference’s most outstanding offensive player.
“I think the talent and leadership is there to do great things this season,” added Eicher. “We have a lot of experience and we have played in a lot of big games over the last three seasons. Now, with the addition of talented and hungry younger guys, including a very talented freshman class, I think we can do some really great things this year.
“I have full faith in these guys to produce and, as a team, we are excited. Still, we all know that it comes down to the small things and the fact that we will need to be playing our best lacrosse at the end of the year.”
