Gunnar Fellows may best be described as the Army men’s lacrosse team’s utilityman extraordinaire.
Whatever is needed, the junior attackman always seems to be ready to supply it. Fellows could be running the Black Knights’ high-powered offense from the point, dishing off passes that lead to quick goals or scoring on his own, Fellows is clearly a key to the team’s early success on the lacrosse field, scoring 13 goals and collecting six assists in the first five games of the season.
Fellows was at his best Saturday. He scored four goals, for the second straight game, and had one assist as Army bested Lafayette, 15-5, in both teams’ Patriot League opener. The victory moved the No. 5 Black Knights to 5-0 on the season. Lafayette is now 3-2.
“Gunnar is terrific and he is a quarterback for us,” said Army coach Joe Alberici. “He just makes all the right plays. Today, he had some great opportunities that he finished, particularly early, which were huge. He is a very smart player and he is just a winner. He will give us whatever we need, if that means one goal and five ground balls, then that is what we get from him. Today, and last week, he racked up some goals which we knew he is capable of.”
Fellows gives much of the credit to his teammates, including the scout team, for his success this year and in the past. Last season, Fellows scored 26 goals and had eight assists and in his freshman year, he scored 23 goals and had six assists.
“I am playing confident and shooting the ball like I know I can and and they keep going in,” Fellows said. “We have a next-play mentality and next-game mentality. Each week, we work hard and we have a lot of good players on this team, especially guys on our scout teams that really make us better on offense and defense ends.”
It is becoming extremely clear that the Black Knights strategy is simply to keep the pressure up on offense and relying on a defense that is suffocating the competition. On Saturday, Army’s offense took 30 shots on net, with freshman Brayden Fountain also scoring four goals for the fourth time this season. Junior Evan Plunkett knocked in three goals and senior Jackson Eicher had two goals and five assists for the Black Knights.
Goalie Sean Byrne and his defensive squad led by senior All-American AJ Pilate and junior John Sullivan, continued to show dominance. Facing just 14 shots on goal, Byrne still managed to stop nine of them for an impressive 64 percent save rate. Army has given up just 24 goals this year.
Making the victory even more impressive was the fact that the Black Knights did it without the services of senior faceoff specialist Will Coletti for much of the game. Coletti suffered a lower-body injury that Alberici said should not keep him out of the lineup for long and was replaced by sophomore Robert Simone, who won 10 of 18 faceoffs and scored a goal.
“We came out a little slow and started firing up and figured out what was working for us in the offense end and started to click and we started running with it and try to not slow down at all,” said Plunkett. “Everything starts in net with No. 1 Sean Byrne, he is lights out and playing crazy. Our defense is always playing with, with a lot of intensity.
“The offense had a lot of shots and a lot of good players. Everyone is getting in and getting their place. Finding the spots they like and the guys they like.”
