7 New Starters has Boston U Leaning on Basics — and Signature 10-Man Ride

What’s old is new again at Boston University — and it’s resulted in the Terriers darting to a 6-1 start entering Saturday’s trip to undefeated Army.

It’s a dramatically different team than the veteran-laden one coach Ryan Polley had a year ago. Filled with a bunch of fifth-year players in the final year of widespread COVID-era players, Boston U had faces that had become familiar throughout the Patriot League as the program picked off new milestones, including the school’s first NCAA tournament berth in 2022.

This spring? Five new starters on offense and two more on close defense. Roy Meyer, a mainstay at long stick midfielder the last several seasons, also graduated. And it led to a back-to-basics approach.

“I think guys have been so experienced that sometimes the practices ran themselves,” Polley said. “Credit to those guys for being such great players and leaders that there was a whole lot of pressure off our coaching staff. This new group with so many new players has forced us to get back to our fundamentals and our teaching, and I think it’s provided us with an opportunity to get better week over week.”

That the Terriers have, winning four in a row before a 13-9 loss at Navy on March 1 in their Patriot League opener. They’ve since handled Bucknell (21-12) and Loyola (13-7) while flashing some of the strengths that have become typical of the Patriot League’s most recently established program.

Polley defers much of the credit for that to offensive coordinator Mike Silipo and defensive coordinator Jack Rowlett. But some of it comes down to identity, too; Boston U has long deployed the 10-man ride as a weapon, and it helps overwhelm opponents and create opportunities.

And, oddly enough, it’s probably helped undersell just how well goalie Will Barnes (.605 save percentage) has played in the first half of the season.

“The way we play, we give up an empty-net goal once a game or every other game,” Polley said. “It certainly works with the way we play and what we’re looking to do from a holistic standpoint, but there’s probably five goals that Will’s standing outside the restraining box when the ball’s going in and they still count against his percentage. I would say when he’s actually been in the cage, he’s even been a few points higher than that.”

There’s other help defensively, most notably the move of senior Trey Brown — a part-time starter on defense last season — to LSM. The lineage from Greg Wozniak to Chase Levesque to Meyer at the position is a strong one, and Brown has solidified a position that has meant much to Boston U over its dozen seasons.

At the other end of the field, the Terriers are less established than in past years but have developed enough cohesion to rank fourth nationally in extra-man efficiency (62.1 percent) and second in Division I in man-up goals (18, one shy of Duke).

It’s not unfamiliar territory for Boston U; the Silipo-led unit ranked 10th in the country in man-up offense in 2021 and first in 2023.

“What can’t be understated is his understanding of man-up offense and understanding his personnel that he’s working with and getting the looks that we want for the skillset that fits our players,” Polley said. “Credit to the boys as well for being selfless and executing. The unit has been very efficient and frankly they’re that way in practice, too. We have a really hard time getting stops in practice because they share the ball so well.”

The Terriers face arguably their best barometer to date with Saturday’s trip to West Point to face what Polley describes as a complete opponent. Army and Boston U have been the most consistent teams in the Patriot League the last few years, and this could turn out to be the first of multiple encounters this season.

And for a team that Polley readily acknowledges is going to be a work in progress, it’s a chance to see how far the Terriers have come since their last trip to a service academy earlier this month.

“We get to play in a football stadium and we have the travel to deal with, [plus] the physicality and intensity of a military academy school in the Patriot League,” Polley said. “All of those things were a little bit new for us, and we didn’t handle it that well, so it’s an opportunity for us to see what we’ve learned over the last three weeks.”

DARTMOUTH'S CHALLENGE AHEAD

No lacrosse championships are won by the middle of March, a fact not lost on Dartmouth coach Sean Kirwan. Still, a moment of reflection was in order for the Big Green after earning their fifth victory in a row with a 17-5 rout of Hobart on Saturday.

Dartmouth had already doubled its victory total from last season, Kirwan’s first at the Ivy League’s New Hampshire outpost. It owned the program’s longest winning streak since 2004. And it had matched the team’s best start to a season since 2003, when the Big Green made their lone NCAA tournament trip.

“We could take a step back earlier in the week and appreciate how far we’ve come but knowing that we still have a long way to go and knowing we have to put our foot down on the gas pedal and keep building this thing,” Kirwan said.

One thing is certain: The back half of the schedule won’t be easy.

Dartmouth (6-1) opens its Ivy League schedule Saturday at Penn after a far different start than it did around this time last year. Kirwan, a former Virginia assistant hired in June 2023, had stitched together an unconventional schedule heavy on road and neutral-site games.

He would argue a home-heavy slate is also unconventional for Dartmouth, albeit a more welcome version of it. But regardless, he’s seen improvement compared to this time a year ago, when the Big Green absorbed a 21-9 drubbing at Georgetown to fall to 3-4 heading into its conference slate.

“The only difference is we’ve been at this thing a little bit longer and that growth from the guys, the commitment to their hard work and the care that they have for each other and for this sport,” Kirwan said. “I give them a ton of credit. When you think about the start we’ve had, it really makes me smile for them because they’ve been putting such hard work in.”

Among the noteworthy holdovers from a year ago is senior goalie Mason Morel, who not only didn’t begin 2024 as the starter but wasn’t the first reserve to get a chance to take over midstream.

Yet he put in the work and eventually wound up starting eight of 13 games, posting a .510 save percentage against mostly Ivy offenses. He heads into league play at 59.9 percent, doing his part to ensure no one would have the chance to wrest the position away.

“He wants to make sure that’s a spot he never loses, so his work ethic has tripled and he’s come such a long way as a leader of our defense and that calming presence in the cage,” Kirwan said. “He’s definitely grown a lot there, something we continue to challenge him at getting better at. But no one works harder than him to a point where we have to hold him back at practice sometimes. He’s trying to jump into shooting drills. I’m like ‘You can take a couple of these off.’”

Meanwhile, a variety of options are contributing on offense. Colorado College transfer Thomas Power has 16 goals and a team-high 16 assists. Program mainstay Colin McGill has 21 goals and is on track to lead the Big Green in the category for the fourth year in a row. Junior Hopper Zappitello, limited to three games last year because of injury, has 11 goals and nine assists.

It’s a deeper group than the Big Green fielded last year, and a couple of blowouts sprinkled into a string of fairly close games have helped Kirwan develop his bench.

But things escalate Saturday, something Dartmouth is well aware of.

“Win or lose this weekend, our goals remain in front of us and we still have to improve,” Kirwan said. “It’s murderer’s row in our league. It’s important we stay focused on getting better and not making this any bigger than it needs to be. In a lot of ways, it’s just another game. But something feels a little different in the air when you’re going against another Ivy League opponent.”

NUMBERS OF NOTE

3-0 • Record for de facto City of Brotherly Love champion Saint Joseph’s against other schools in the Philadelphia area after defeating Drexel, Villanova and Penn in consecutive games. It’s the first time in program history the Hawks have defeated all three of those teams in the same season.

8 • Consecutive victories for Fairfield, the longest winning streak in program history. The Stags, who play host to Drexel on Saturday, have won their last three games by double-digit margins to improve to 8-0.

71 • Years since Army opened back-to-back seasons with seven consecutive victories. The Black Knights last accomplished it in 1953 and 1954 on the way to 9-2 records.