NCAA Men's Lacrosse Preview: No. 15 Army's Monster Senior Class

USA Lacrosse Magazine is beginning its countdown to Feb. 1 — the first day of the 2025 men's lacrosse season — by releasing one team preview per day beginning on Monday, Jan. 13.

We continue the countdown with No. 15 Army, a team with 22 seniors keen on lifting the Black Knights back to the NCAA tournament and beyond.

Joe Alberici has never played in the transfer portal. He’s never had to worry about the new world of NIL, either. Players come to West Point for a distinct reason, and he’s keen on having them stay.

Thankfully, he doesn’t need to do much convincing.

“I don’t think we’ve lost a recruit because they were getting NIL money somewhere,” Alberici said. “That’s never been vocalized. It’s part of what the landscape is. It doesn’t make the job any easier in recruiting, but in the end, I do believe the vast majority of lacrosse players are leveraging their skills and abilities to find the best and right academic institution for them.”

Coming out of COVID, with a blanket waiver enabling athletes to make program-changing decisions, his players could have gone to new schools with three years of eligibility left. They decided to stay under his watch with just two remaining.

This year, his 22-player senior class will wrap up a five-year journey (including their prep school year) without losing a single member.

“We started with 22 people in this class, and we are going to graduate 22 people in this class,” he said. “In this day and age and with some understanding of the difficulties and expectations here, to have your senior group be intact, that says a lot about the young men in the program.”

Alberici’s teams are almost always physical, heady and gritty. They’re experienced. And while there’s plenty of returning All-American talent, expect an infusion of youth that could have Army playing at a bit of a faster pace this spring.

“On the field, I think we’re going to be slightly younger in the offensive end,” Alberici said. “We’re going to try and see if we’re capable of playing at a faster speed and take more opportunities in transition. It’s something that we’ve always done and we’ve been pretty efficient, but we just want to take that to another level.”

With AJ Pilate and the defense kickstarting the transition game and Evan Plunkett and the midfield pushing the tempo, that should give Jackson Eicher, Gunnar Fellows and a slew of freshmen ready for games ample opportunities.

And after missing out on the NCAA tournament last May, Army could be out to make a statement.

TOP RETURNERS

Evan Plunkett, M, Jr. (29G, 19A)
AJ Pilate, D, Sr. (36GB, 23 CT)
Will Coletti, FO, Sr. (.620% FO, 117 GB)

Between the aforementioned players, Sean Byrne in goal and Jackson Eicher and Gunnar Fellows on attack, Army should feel good about its returning experience in all areas of the field. 

“Of course we have to improve in everything, but there isn’t a particular focus,” Alberici said. 

The midfield probably has the biggest shoes to fill, but with Plunkett anchoring the group, it’ll surely be a strength.

KEY ADDITIONS

Hill Plunkett, A, Fr. (United States Military Academy Prep School)
Brayden Fountain, A, Fr. (Allatoona High School, Ga.)
Aiden Weisenborn, M, Fr. (Wheaton Academy, Ill.)
Tommy Stines, D, Fr. (United States Military Academy Prep School)

Army owns the ninth-ranked Class of 2024 according to Inside Lacrosse, but an ACL injury suffered by five-star goalie Tade Wynn — the No. 6 overall player in the class — while still at Culver Academy means he won’t enroll in West Point until next July. Nine other freshmen enrolled, though, highlighted by Hill Plunkett — the four-star brother of Evan Plunkett.

NOTABLE DEPARTURES

Graduations: Reese Burek, A; Jacob Morin, M; Matt Chess, G; Bailey O’Connor, M; Ryan Sposito, M; Ned Lynch, D

X-FACTOR

Sean Byrne, G (.551 SV%, 6 starts)

Byrne took over for Matt Chess in the second half of last season and ran with the job. “I don’t know how the rest of the world perceives this guy, but Sean Byrne started the second half for us and had some huge games. … and he had a good fall,” Alberici said. While it was an open competition last season, Alberici expects Byrne to stick in goal.

THE NARRATIVE

Many years, the path for Patriot League teams to reach the NCAA tournament is a league championship. That’s why Lehigh was the conference’s lone representative last May. Army, though, was 5-0 in non-conference games, including a third-straight win over a Syracuse team that made the tournament.

That, unfortunately, was not enough of a resume-booster for the Black Knights to hear their name called on Selection Sunday.

The Patriot League is uber competitive. Six teams were above .500 in league play in 2024, with Army and Lehigh tied atop the table at 6-2. Still, somehow, it feels like Patriot League teams are undervalued nationally.

“All I have to tell you is about what we’ve been doing,” Alberici said. “Last year, we were 5-0 out of the conference. That included a Big Ten win [16-7 at Rutgers] and two ACC wins [14-13 at Syracuse and 13-12 at North Carolina].”

Just a year prior, Army was one of the darlings of the NCAA tournament after it took down defending national champion Maryland in the quarterfinals.

But with at-large berths out of the Patriot League squarely in the hands of the Selection Committee, Alberici and Co. know what’s at stake in the conference.

“Our focus really has to be on the Patriot League,” he said. “There’s a heightened awareness of how important the league is to us and what we want to do.”