The Army men’s lacrosse team gave the rest of the Patriot League, as well as all of college lacrosse, a peek at what they may have to look forward to as the regular season turns to the postseason.
Before a crowd of more than 4,000 on Senior Day at Michie Stadium Saturday, the Black Knights walloped visiting Bucknell, 20-11, to secure a first-round bye in the Patriot League tournament in two weeks. The victory positions Army to win the league’s regular season title and the right to host the semifinals and final round games with a victory over Loyola on Friday.
It is not the fact that Army, which honored 22 firsties were honored for their contributions to the team over the last four years, won the game as much as how the Black Knights came away with the victory. Jackson Eicher, the senior attackman and the team’s leading scorer, set a career record with seven goals and three assists in the game. Junior Gunnar Fellows, who shares the first attack line with Eicher and freshman Brayden Fountain, added a career-high five goals and two assists, while eight other Black Knights tallied a goal to help Army move to 11-1 on the season and 6-1 in the Patriot League.
“I think we are doing a real great job of just focusing week by week and focusing on who we play because everyone knows that the Patriot League can be real tricky sometimes,” said senior Will Coletti. “The senior class has taken that approach and, from there, it has leaked throughout the entire team.”
Even more impressive was the way the Black Knights took control of the game after a haphazard first 20 minutes of play. Despite jumping out to a 4-0 lead in the first quarter and a 7-4 lead midway through the second quarter, Bucknell managed to cut Army’s lead to just one, 7-6 with 7:58 left in the first half.
But, the Black Knights took control, with some unheralded players, including Andrew Miller, Tim Johnson, Mike Harney and Grant Masterson, each scoring their first goals of the season. Army took an 11-7 lead into the half and dominated the third quarter to grab a 18-9 lead at the end of the period.
“(The scoring) shows how deep we are as a team,” noted Coletti. “We run three midfield lines. Now it is great to have Gunnar, who has two years under his belt; Jackson has a year under his belt with his injury (in his sophomore year) and they are turning into veteran guys and they are making everyone else better on the field, including the midfield lines. It showed today with a 20-goal game.”
Coletti, an All-American as a faceoff specialist last season, set a Patriot League record for career faceoff wins during the game. His 19 faceoffs wins against the Bison moved Coletti’s total to 750 in his career at Army. “I will just shout out the unit first because it is not a one-on-one, it is a three-on-three,” he said. “Christian Fornier, Christian Mazur and Ryan Nixon have been on the wings with me since freshman year. There is a lot of chemistry going on with those three guys and I don’t look at this my individual record. I look at it as our record.”
The emergence of Fellows this season is also a big factor in Army’s success thus far. Fellows has scored 27 goals and added 11 assists this year and his scoring productivity has prevented many opponents to focus solely on Eicher, who has 45 goals this year.
“Jackson and I started to play together last year once he got back from his ACL injury and he is great to play with,” said Fellows. “I know I can throw him the ball and I know he can shoot it and score. He is always looking for me and I am looking for him. It is just great chemistry and Brayden Fountain makes our jobs easier as well. Playing with Jackson is a lot of fun and we play really well together.”
Army coach Joe Alberici said his team approached the contest as if was a playoff game, noting that Bucknell was playing for a spot in the postseason and Army needed the win to guarantee a first-round bye for the fifth straight campaign. “I am really proud of our program for doing that,” he said. “I thought we had a slow start after going up 4-0, but was really happy with our guys in the second half where we dominated groundballs, 22-9, and started to see the scoreboard move in our favor.
“I was really impressed with the number of goal scorers. We had three long sticks with goals. We had seven points, three goals and four assists, from non-offensive personnel. When you start playing into April and May, the transition game becomes bigger and bigger and that is how you need to play. The guys were able to play fast and were efficient.”
With Boston University defeating Lehigh on Saturday, Alberici noted that the Loyola game, which starts at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, takes on even more importance. Army needs to win that game or Boston University needs to lose to Colgate for Army to secure the regular-season title.
“We are going to have a great Loyola team coming in here that has won three in a row and took apart Navy last night,” he said. “They will be hungry, but our team is hungry too. We have things riding (on the game) and it just really important for us to keep improving even in the late season.”
