Men's Tewaaraton Stock Watch: New Names on the Periphery

No one is playing their way out of Tewaaraton Award consideration in February. It’s also possible to earn some attention for early season exploits.

That’s what a nine-goal game can do (Yale’s Chris Lyons, whose prolific day against Villanova left him a goal shy of Jon Reese’s single-game school record). It’s what stopping two-thirds of the shots over a multi-game stretch will do (North Carolina’s Collin Krieg and Loyola’s Luke Staudt).

There is also a long way to go and plenty of time to prove things over the entire spring, which is why the names populating this week’s Tewaaraton Watch are familiar ones who are off to good starts.

1. Connor Shellenberger, A, Virginia (6 G, 10 A)

The redshirt junior uncorked a three-goal, seven-assist outing Saturday, as the Cavaliers dropped 20 goals on Harvard in the first half and earned a 25-21 victory.

It was only the 18th time a Virginia player produced a 10-point game and just the fifth since the end of the 1996 season. The others to pull it off since then: Conor Gill (2002), Garrett Billings (2009), Michael Kraus (2018) and Matt Moore (2020). Pretty good company.

2. Brennan O’Neill, A, Duke (13 G, 10 A)

The junior has at least four points in every game so far, and he had the tying and winning goals in Friday’s overtime defeat of Denver. He also reached the 150-point plateau for his career and moved into the top 30 of Duke’s career scoring leaders.

The Blue Devil star next gets a matchup with Penn, which limited Georgetown’s potent offense to seven goals in its season opener.

3. CJ Kirst, A, Cornell (6 G)

Kirst accounted for half of the Big Red’s scoring in its 12-10 opening defeat of Albany. It was a far sloppier game than Cornell would like, but chalk some of it up to the unevenness that often comes in a season opener.

Still, Kirst was sharp enough to help the Big Red survive a road trip in its season debut. He and Cornell welcome Lehigh to Ithaca on Sunday.

4. Chris Kavanagh (9 G, 6 A), A, Notre Dame and Pat Kavanagh, A, Notre Dame (2 G, 12 A)

Remember, brothers have shared the Tewaaraton before. Why not again? Especially if the Fighting Irish’s offense can remain on track like it did in its opening week.

Chris Kavanagh dropped five goals on Marquette and four on Cleveland State last week, while Pat Kavanagh had a half-dozen assists in both games and leads the country in the category. He joins Shellenberger and O’Neill as the only Division I players to come out of the weekend with at least 10 assists.

5. Matt Brandau, A, Yale (4 G, 3 A)

Coming off a 99-point season as a junior, Brandau did a bit of everything on offense in Yale’s 20-14 defeat of Villanova (including assists on two of Chris Lyons’ goals).

Yale finished sixth nationally with 14.88 goals a game last season, and it has a chance to perhaps even be better this spring with Brandau playing a prominent role.

Next five: Sam Handley, M, Penn; Collin Krieg, G, North Carolina; Chris Lyons, A, Yale; Jack Myers, A, Ohio State; Luke Staudt, G, Loyola