“We’re a physical team,” Karweck said. “We dodge hard. We ask a ton of our scout team and a ton of our players to be as physical as we can be. And how does that work? You can’t do a ton of it. You have to make sure you practice that way. As you watch those games back, we may not have won those games, but we gained massive amounts of confidence when we’re putting our shoulder in the chest of some of these defensemen that everybody loves.”
The basic external thinking heading into the season was Colgate might have been due to push itself into serious Patriot League consideration. It brought back five of its top six scorers, and it generally lost close games to conference opponents.
And while there are some familiar figures on offense — such as Liam Connor (10 goals, 12 assists), Jack Turner (15 goals, five assists), Rory Connor (13 goals, six assists) and Hunter Drouin (13 goals) — Karweck doesn’t see this as merely a continuation of a team that went 8-7 a season ago.
“The growth mindset is we don’t want to be last year’s team,” Karweck said. “We don’t want to be a little bit better than last year’s team. We want to be a brand-new team that does the things we do at a level that is much higher than any year before.”
NUMBERS OF NOTE
7 • Goals for Hofstra’s Drew Bogardus in the Pride’s 13-12 overtime defeat of St. John’s, the second-most ever for a freshman in the program. Owen Walsh holds the Hofstra freshman record of eight, set in 1949.
12 • Points for Cornell’s CJ Kirst in Tuesday’s 22-9 rout of Hobart, a career high and the most for a Big Red player since Jeff Teat had 12 against Harvard in 2018. Kirst’s six-goal, six-assist day made him the sixth player in Cornell history to post a 12-point day, joining Teat (twice), Jim Trenz (twice), Bruce Cohen, Tim Goldstein and Dick Shriver).
18 • Ground balls for Syracuse’s John Mullen in the Orange’s 15-14 loss to Harvard, the second most in school history behind faceoff wing Sam Bassett’s 21 against Georgetown on May 6, 2000. Mullen’s 28 faceoff wins were the most since Chris Cercy had 28 in that same game against Georgetown in 2000 and are tied for the second most in program history.
26 • Saves for Mercer goalie Rand Paddack on Saturday against Army, the most for any Division I goalie since St. Bonaventure’s Brett Dobson had 27 against Siena on May 5, 2022.