2023 Men's Top 30: How Saint Joseph's Fared vs. Projections

Before USA Lacrosse Magazine looks ahead to what’s to come in 2024, our team of staff and contributors decided it was worth taking one last look at 2023.

After all, you have to look at the most recent results before making projections for what’s to come. To do that, we’re taking a journey through the top 30 teams in men’s and women’s lacrosse — what went right, what went wrong and what we should all think of that team’s season.

Was it a success? A failure? A mixture of both? You’ll find out our thoughts over the next month or so.

SAINT JOSEPH’S MEN’S LACROSSE

Nike/USA Lacrosse Preseason/Final Top 20 Ranking: 20/Unranked (also considered)
2023 record: 10-5 (5-0 Atlantic 10)

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Zach Cole was a monster at the X yet again, winning 62 percent of his draws. Carter Page (47 G, 42.7 shooting percentage) and Levi Anderson (39 G, 11 A, 37.5 shooting percentage) were the biggest stars on a potent offense. The Hawks moved into a deeper league and ran the table in the regular season while hanging around the edge of the Nike/USA Lacrosse Top 20 all season.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Playing a bolstered non-conference schedule, Saint Joseph’s missed out on a signature victory, taking one-goal losses to Johns Hopkins and Penn and falling 12-9 to Duke. But the biggest problem was just a misstep at the wrong time, a 16-14 loss to fourth-seeded High Point in the Atlantic 10 semifinals that knocked the Hawks out of NCAA tournament contention.

SEASON HIGHLIGHT

The Hawks locked down in the fourth quarter on April 22 against UMass, holding the Minutemen scoreless in the final period on the way to an 11-10 victory that clinched the top seed in the Atlantic 10 tournament.

VERDICT

A perverse way to tell a program has arrived is when it wins 10-plus games and a regular season conference title and there’s still a temptation to wonder what happened. In truth, the Hawks finished second nationally in faceoff percentage, 10th in scoring and 18th in shooting percentage a year after checking in at first, 13th and eighth, respectively, in those categories. The strengths were the same; the difference was a conference tournament loss.