Midwest Might: Maryville Men Lean into Region to Build Contender

The Maryville Saints are quietly having one of the best seasons in their history with a 9-3 record and a 3-0 showing in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.

If the team’s name sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because of their improbable but glorious run to the Division II playoffs in 2024. Last season, the Saints went 13-5 but lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to GLVC rival Lewis, the last of four meetings between the two sides a year ago.

After all that success, this season still feels like Maryville is beginning to break out in the Midwest corridor of Division II. The crazy thing is they have enjoyed all this success with a lot of talent from their region, with just a sprinkling of Canadian seasoning to the roster. With players from Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado, Georgia and even New Hampshire, Maryville is building a team and a culture that is quite different from its East Coast counterparts.

A big part of that is head coach Scott Stark.

Originally from Minnesota, Stark was, obviously, a hockey guy first. After chasing his dream to its conclusion in the middle of high school, he transitioned to his secondary sport. He was part of one of the first classes from Minnesota Elite and went on to play his college lacrosse at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Stark started his coaching career at Minnesota-Duluth, an MCLA program, serving as the recruiting coordinator before taking the next step forward.

You see, Stark came to the Division II ranks from a rather unorthodox pipeline — Lindenwood. Perhaps that’s an unfair remark, given Lindenwood’s decision to terminate its Division I men’s program last year. That wound is, without a doubt, quite fresh in the minds of all the players and families affected by the decision. He then left that program to take over Maryville prior to the start of the 2021 campaign.

“In 2013, I came down to Lindenwood,” Stark said. “I finished my time as a graduate assistant and was asked to take over as the defensive coordinator position and wound up being on Coach [Jim] Lange’s staff. I worked my way up to be an associate head coach there and was there for seven seasons. But I got out of coaching for a year and worked on the athletic development side of the administration, and I knew pretty quickly that I needed to go back to coaching. Luckily, I had the chance to go to Maryville in 2020 right before COVID.”

The growth of lacrosse in the Midwest region of Division II has been slow, if not steady, the last 20 years. More and more universities in the region have started or increased their funding of men’s lacrosse as more states have started to sponsor it. The Minnesota State High School League officially sanctioned the sport in 2007. Illinois officially sanctioned it in 2016. Most recently, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association sanctioned boys’ lacrosse for the 2023-24 season. 

More states equal more players, and more players broaden the recruiting pool.

“I’ve certainly learned over the years that you need to win your backyard,” Stark said. “You have to at least be able to build a product that your region is proud of and wants to be a part of. So, our focus is on getting the best kids out of this region. But you also have to recruit players who fit your institution. So, being a Midwest guy, understanding the Midwest, understanding where kids want to go, and understanding the price points of different areas are all part of our recruiting efforts. We want to win the Midwest.”

Expanding the scope of the roster was a little trickier. Stark went back to his roots to bring in key players who have paid dividends for Maryville’s efforts this season in particular.

Having Canadian talent nearby is always helpful, but the leading scorer on this year’s team is Justin Simonson, a junior attackman from Minnesota.

“I have a great connection with Minnesota, so I was able to get some of those players in,” Stark said. “We have a pretty strong [pipeline] from Canada even before I got here, and we still bring those players in. I recruited a lot of players from the East Coast of Canada. We’ve also developed some inroads to Calgary and the West Coast of Canada as well. In the Class of ‘26, we have players committed from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, so we are branching out of the Minnesota/Illinois side of the Midwest.”

In addition to Simonson, who has a team-high 56 points, graduate student goalie Dylan Radke has been a massive part of Maryville’s success. Radke plays an extremely lively and acrobatic style in the cage, but he’s also not scared to venture out to finish clears or even pursue loose balls.

Incredibly, Radke is fourth on the team in ground balls with 33 and has caused six turnovers. He’s also allowed 8.3 goals per game and is saving exactly 50 percent of the shots he’s faced through 12 games.

When you add the one-two punch of junior faceoff duo Shea Raeburn and Andrew Skifstad, you can see how the end product of regional recruiting can work. Raeburn is from White Bear Lake, Minn., and Skifstad hails from St. Charles, Ill.

“They were two of the best faceoff guys in their class coming out of high school and in the Midwest region in general,” Stark said. “We went pretty hard after both of those guys by saying, ‘Look, a lot of the success at the faceoff position comes with being a great athlete. We think both of you guys are great athletes, and we want as much depth in that position as possible.’ What they have done for our program in terms of being a consistent duo, they are guys that we can lean on heavily and have done so since they were freshmen.”

To top it all off, the one player coach Stark insisted on including is Dagan Carlson. He’s a Canadian short-stick defensive midfielder who hasn't gotten much acclaim and doesn’t have crazy numbers (15CT, 33GB) but is “one of the best SSDMs in the country.”

This season, Maryville has dropped tightly contested games against 2024 Division II runner-up Lenoir-Rhyne, top-ranked Tampa and Sunshine State luminary Saint Leo. But they have won every other contest so far, avenging at least one of last year’s losses to Lewis earlier this April with a solid 14-10 victory.

Huge tilts against Rockhurst and UIndy are up in quick succession. If the Saints can win both, they will be the undisputed No. 1 seed in the GLVC playoffs.

“Our goal is to build the strongest schedule that we can,” Stark said. “I think we are one of the top five schools in all of Division II in terms of travel, and that’s something we have worked hard to build and maintain. The reason we want to play those teams out of the SAC and the Sunshine is because those are the teams that are going to be there in May. The end goal is to play the best we can and position ourselves for the GLVC playoffs. I feel very strongly that if you can build an out-of-conference schedule that is competitive, by the time you get to the conference playoffs, you’re better conditioned to that level of ball. We want to build Maryville into a household name.”