Division I Men's Lacrosse Notebook: Freshmen Find Footing in Week 0

When Navy coach Joe Amplo arrives at his office a bit before 8 a.m., he knows new Midshipmen offensive coordinator Ken Broschart will be out on a walk.

And at the top of the hour, he’ll be standing on Rip Miller Field, where Navy often practices, as the national anthem is played throughout the yard.

“That’s his thing,” Amplo said. “I don’t think he’s missed a day.”

Little wonder the coach says one of the reasons he hired Broschart as the program’s fourth offensive coordinator in as many years is that he wanted to be at Navy.

Based on Saturday’s opening 14-10 victory at High Point, the Mids are taking to the new assistant’s teachings. Ten players scored and 13 recorded a point, a striking showing for a group that saw five of its top six scorers graduate.

Of course, Navy got a boost from a newcomer. Freshman midfielder Jack Ponzio had two goals and two assists, something Amplo could see coming when the Long Island product was part of the Naval Academy Prep School team that scrimmaged the Mids in Annapolis.

“He has a presence about him; he’s got this edge about him,” Amplo said. “I didn’t think the burdens of being a plebe on the yard and being a plebe in college lacrosse were going to impact him as much. So far, he handled his first semester on the yard really well, and he’s had a good preseason. So far, he’s just playing a little bit wiser than what a freshman should be.”

Beyond Ponzio and holdover starter Henry Tolker, the bulk of Navy’s projected contributors are upperclassmen who were either complementary pieces or reserves until this season. Senior Carter Ash entered the year with one career hat trick; he had three goals and an assist in the opener. Roman LaRocco had one goal in his first three seasons; he started and scored a goal Saturday.

It’s an indication Amplo’s aim to base the program on player development could bear fruit this spring.

“It was a couple guys making a play, within the system,” Amplo said. “I think that’s what our ingredients are going to be for success. I was really happy with that. I don’t think the guys mind that. I think that’s a sign of a potentially good team is guys are more excited about the fact there are 10 different guys that scored a goal than, ‘Hey, I didn’t get mine.’”

Broschart is certainly playing his part on that front. It’s a frequent occurrence that Amplo wonders where his offensive coordinator is, only to discover he’s working with a player when they have a rare spare moment.

“He takes it to heart,” Amplo said. “He doesn’t push it to somebody else’s responsibility. If he can spend eight hours a day on the field with guys, he would. The rules don’t allow for that, but he’s out there trying to get these guys better with a hands-on approach on a daily basis.”

FITZPATRICK’S SPARK

Ronan Fitzpatrick is wasting little time providing an answer to one of Towson’s biggest questions.

The graduation of Nick DeMaio (32 goals, 50 assists in 2024) left the defending CAA champions seeking a lefty force on attack. Fitzpatrick, a redshirt freshman, scored five times in Tuesday’s 11-10 loss to Johns Hopkins.

It wasn’t technically a debut - he played briefly in a game early last season against Navy before taking a redshirt year — but it was a breakout the 5-foot-11, 165-pounder had sought for a while.

“It was mainly over the summer of last year,” Fitzpatrick said. “I was on and off last year, and during the summer, I decided I was going to come back an animal and be the fastest, strongest on the team. That was my goal. If I’m the fastest and strongest, my stickwork will get better on the field during practice and eventually I’ll be able to play.”

The question Tuesday was just how the Tigers (0-1) would be able to take him off the field in a tight game. He scored four of their seven goals in the first three quarters, and his extra-man goal with 39 seconds left at least gave Towson the opportunity to force overtime before the Hopkins defense held.

“He built off what he looked like last week in our scrimmage,” Towson coach Shawn Nadelen said. “He came in last week and had four and two. He is playing with confidence and embracing the opportunities that he’s had, so it gave us some fire when maybe we weren’t playing well or in a groove.”

MCNAMARA, UTES OFF AND RUNNING

Utah coach Andrew McMinn checked in with members of his freshman class prior to the Utes’ preseason scrimmages just to get a gauge of whether they might be jittery at the dawn of their college careers.

He couldn’t have received a much better answer than the one he got from Luke McNamara.

“He said, ‘Coach, I haven’t been nervous since I was in like sixth grade,’” McMinn said. “He’s as loose as can be and is exactly what you want out anyone that’s out there, just wanting to go out and play the game and have fun and they’re capable of doing it in every situation and are just unfazed, and he certainly embodies that as well as anyone I’ve seen.”

There was no tentativeness present in McNamara’s debut outing Saturday. The Overland Park, Kan., product scored five goals on 12 shots as the Utes handled host Ohio State 19-13.

It was a crisper performance than what McMinn saw a week earlier in scrimmages against Fairfield and Holy Cross in Connecticut. Considering the five of the Utes’ seven double-digit goal scorers from a year ago graduated, that couldn’t have come as an astonishing development.

Still, Utah has quickly built an impressive standard. It needed just five seasons to earn its first NCAA tournament berth, then it earned a second consecutive Atlantic Sun title last season.

But for a program so young — especially with so many careers extended thanks to the NCAA’s blanket COVID waiver for the 2020 season — the Utes haven’t faced many overhauls until now.

“We had no question of whether the guys who are going to fill in the roles for the first time this year are talented enough to be every bit as good as we were last year, if not even stronger,” McMinn said. “It’s more so that mental side of the game. … Just making sure they were ready for those big moments was the concern, and they really just rung the bell with proving they were.”

The most eye-catching statistic for Utah probably wasn’t that it beat a Big Ten program for the first time, or that it dropped nearly 20 goals on the road, or faceoff man Tyler Kloeckl’s 21 of 29 day (though those all carry considerable value).

It was the nine turnovers the tempo-conscious Utes committed at a time of the season when many coaches are left wondering how much sloppiness should be chalked up to early February lacrosse.

“A lot of times people think because of our speed and our pace and pushing transition that there’s somewhat of a reckless component to it,” McMinn said. “But we really within the rules and concept of our offense try to keep things as safe as possible when we are pushing transition where we’re not trying to throw through sticks, we’re not trying to skip to guys who can’t shoot, we’re trying to keep things as safe as possible while trying to push for those numbers.”

MIDS MOURN MEDHURST

Saturday’s game against Iona marks Navy’s first home game since broadcaster Pete Medhurst died on Jan. 20 at 55.

Medhurst, who was diagnosed with brain cancer in late October, served as the Mids’ radio voice on lacrosse games for the last 24 years, including Navy’s run to the 2004 national title game. He also called lacrosse for ESPNU and the Big Ten Network.

Amplo said he found his pregame conversations with Medhurst a source of comfort and found it remarkable how often he would hear players’ parents say how good Medhurst made their sons feel during postgame interviews.

“There was this satisfaction when you listened to him that you knew he was an expert on our game and our team, and you knew he knew us and you knew he was saying the things that mattered,” Amplo said. “Sometimes you didn’t agree with him, but you trusted him. I think there was this innate trust when you heard his voice that you felt comfortable that he’d done his homework and he was doing his job professionally, and I think that’s a hard thing for people to feel when they’re listening — especially to our sport.”

Medhurst was also Navy’s play-by-play announcer for men’s basketball for 14 seasons and football for 12, as well filling myriad roles in the Baltimore and Washington radio markets. In no way was he a specialist who concentrated on just one sport.

Yet his work at Navy began just as college lacrosse was about to enter an expansion in broadcasting and continued in recent years alongside his friend Joe Miller.

“We’ve become the standard in our sport for broadcasting games, in my opinion,” Amplo said. “With Pete and Joe, we have two professionals who do our games and they have set the standard for people to reach for. Pete was that. He was the north star for all lacrosse broadcasters to emulate and he helped raise the standard for our sport. You want to make this a big-time sport? Here’s the model for broadcasting.”

NUMBERS OF NOTE

8

Goals in Bucknell’s season opener for senior Connor Davis, one shy of both the school and Patriot League records set by Will Yorke in 2020 against Marist. Davis put 11 of his 14 shots on goal in the Bison’s 23-7 rout of Merrimack.

13

Ground balls for High Point’s Luca Accardo in its opening week loss to Navy, the most for any Panther since Davis Sampere had a school-record 18 against Richmond on April 27, 2019. Accardo’s performance marked only the fifth time a High Point player had at least 13 ground balls in a game.

26

Goals for Duke in its 26-7 rout of Bellarmine on Saturday, the program’s most in any game since 2000. The Blue Devils collected a 29-4 defeat of St. Andrews in that season on the way to an 11-5 record.

32

Consecutive season-opening victories for Maryland, which dispatched Richmond 12-7 on Saturday. The Terrapins haven’t lost an opener since 1994 and improved to 96-3-1 all-time to begin a season.