Army was the first team left out of last year’s NCAA tournament field, a disappointment considering the Black Knights finished 12-4 and beat eventual quarterfinalists Notre Dame and Syracuse.

Coach Joe Alberici wants to make it clear this is a different team and a different season. Nonetheless, those experiences haven’t completely evaporated in the new year.

“It’s a little bit of foolishness to just completely discount it and not recognize the fact these guys have been in some pretty big games and won games against top teams,” Alberici said. “There is a little bit of residue left over. It’s not the exact same team, but there’s a lot of guys who partook in some big victories. It’s had nothing but a positive effect.”

As evidence, look at Army’s 3-0 start, which includes a 9-7 victory over Rutgers. As usual, the Black Knights have thrived in part because of their depth and versatility, which were on full display against the Scarlet Knights and best exemplified by the play of long pole Jon LaMonica.

Alberici said he first got an inkling last Thursday that All-Patriot League defenseman Johnny Surdick wouldn’t be able to play. Initially, Army planned to start another defenseman, but it eventually decided to use LaMonica there because it planned to double-pole the Rutgers midfield.

LaMonica turned in a monster game, collecting a career-high nine ground balls thanks to his faceoff wing work while remaining on the field all day at the defensive end.

“It wasn’t what we’d practiced the whole time, and I fully expected to have to spell LaMonica at some point,” Alberici said. “He took every single faceoff wing and played down low. It was pretty impressive.”

It’s hardly Army’s only standout showing. Matt Manown, who had two goals and two assists against Rutgers and is probably the Black Knights’ best two-way midfielder, is enjoying a breakout start. Alberici praised senior defenseman Dom Ricca for going beyond expectations with his leadership, communication and ability to pick up groundballs in traffic.

Now it’s off to Syracuse (1-1), a team Army is both certain to respect and capable of defeating based on recent history.

“You want to have that healthy respect for Syracuse, which is something our guys have given and done in years past,” Alberici said. “It’s nothing but earned. There’s another sense, too, that this is a top-tier team and we think of ourselves as one of those teams.”

PHOTO BY JOHN STROHSACKER

Hounds Unleash Short Sticks

Loyola leaning heavily on its rope unit isn’t a recent development. The Greyhounds’ defensive midfield was a catalyst throughout their 2012 NCAA title run, with long pole Scott Ratliff and short sticks Josh Hawkins and Pat Laconi setting a high standard.

Loyola has encouraged transition opportunities ever since, but it might be ready to take things even further if Saturday’s 12-5 win over of Johns Hopkins is any indication.

Senior short stick Brian Begley frequently stayed on the field after clears and collected two goals and two assists while benefitting from the extra attention Hopkins paid to attackman Pat Spencer. Begley set career highs in assists and points while delivering his third career multi-goal game. Fellow senior short stick Jared Mintzlaff added another goal in more traditional Loyola fashion — in an unsettled situation.

Some of this is a function of opportunity. The Greyhounds (1-1), who host Lafayette on Saturday, graduated two starting midfielders after last season, so there aren’t as many entrenched options. But it’s also a reflection of both the ability of players like Begley and the willingness of second-year offensive coordinator Marc Van Arsdale to push the pace.

“We want to go D to O, and Coach Van’s pushing that now where he’s allowing Jared and I to stay on, get into 6-on-6 sets like we did [Saturday] and it worked,” Begley said. “We’re going to try to do that going forward.”

For the Hundredth Time

Maryland remained undefeated Wednesday with a 13-6 victory over Penn that marked coach John Tillman’s 100th victory at the school. It also meant every active coach with a Division I tournament title to his credit owns 100 victories at his current school, a statistical quirk that reflects impressive stability at the sport’s top programs and has briefly occurred just twice before.

When Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala won his 100th game with the Blue Jays in 2009, he joined John Desko (Syracuse), Dom Starsia (Virginia), Bill Tierney (Princeton) and Don Zimmerman (UMBC, though he led Hopkins to three titles) as national champs with 100 victories at his current school. But at the end of that season, Tierney departed for Denver.

It was then achieved again last year when Tierney (Denver) and Joe Breschi (North Carolina) earned their 100th victories at their respective schools, joining Desko, Pietramala, Duke’s John Danowski and Loyola’s Charley Toomey.

Maryland’s national title last spring reset the trend again — at least until the defending champs won their first four games of 2018.