Through eight games, Hampden-Sydney has the highest man-up success rate in all of college lacrosse — not just in Division III, but at any level.

The Tigers (6-2) are operating at a 68.6-percent clip, which is better than Penn State (65.2) in Division I and defending NCAA champion Merrimack (50.0) in Division II.

So, what’s the secret? Hampden-Sydney coach Jason Rostan, a former ODAC Player of the Year, said it all starts with having two coaches’ sons on the man-up unit. There’s senior attackman and leading scorer John Burke, whose father, also named John, coaches at St. Christopher’s in Richmond, Va. There’s also junior attackman Jack Hayden, whose father, John, coaches at Apex High School in North Carolina.

“We’ve got two coaches on the field almost with those guys,” Rostan said. “They’ve grown up around the game and are really smart players.”

The hard work comes, though, with developing two or three new plays for each game. Rostan admits it, too: If he likes what he sees from another team, he’ll integrate it into the Tigers’ repertoire, sometimes even naming the play after their mascot. That has them 15 plays deep and counting, trying to catch teams off guard.

“Our plays aren't motions or tweaks off our 3-3 or something like that,” Rostan said. “We really try to come up with some brand new stuff out of different formations and seals and flips and hidden-ball tricks. We’re always looking for something that we haven't shown at all.”

But there was some worry heading into 2019 about what the man-up unit would look like, aside from Burke and Hayden. Hampden-Sydney has just 15 upperclassmen on its roster this year, as opposed to more than 40 underclassmen. Much of last year’s man-up group graduated after 2018, and Rostan worried the new faces meant he’d have to dial things back some.

Rather, it’s been quite the opposite — all without a playbook or too intricate of a play-calling system.

“We’ll take a half-hour in a practice with our six to eight man-up guys, hop on one end of the field, call out a play,” Rostan said. “We’ll rip through them. It seems like a lot, but the guys have gotten comfortable with it.”

In terms of his own man-up outlook, Rostan pointed to Ray Rostan, his father and former longtime Hampden-Sydney coach, and Denver coach Bill Tierney as inspirations.

Now the group’s biggest test yet of 2019 comes Saturday in an ODAC game against Washington and Lee. Hampden-Sydney has already lost to Christopher Newport and Cabrini, two other ranked teams, and knows the home game against A.J. Witherell and company will offer a barometer of sorts.

However it goes, the Tigers are bound to throw a few new man-up plays their opponent’s way.

“This will be a great one,” Rostan said. “We’ve got a lot of respect for W&L and a lot of people understandably see them as the top team in the league. We couldn’t be more excited to take a run at these guys.”

Defense the backbone of surging Cabrini team

With 16.14 goals per game, Cabrini has one of the top offenses in Division III lacrosse. That comes as no surprise with Tyler Kostack, Jakob Klein and Jordan Krug all returning from 2018 and combining for 74 points through seven games.

But the backbone of this year’s Cavaliers team, one that just vaulted to No. 4 in this week’s Nike/US Lacrosse Top 20, might be its defense. That truth isn’t lost on coach Steve Colfer, who pointed to experience and familiarity as the drivers behind a group that’s allowing just 6.14 goals per game. That’s good for 11th nationally and the highest of any ranked team.

“As offenses have gotten more and more intricate over the years — there are a lot of smart guys in our business who can break down film and find holes — that continuity and on-the-fly communication, that ability to trust one another is really important,” Colfer said.

The group is junior- and senior-heavy, as led by Tommy DeLuca, an honorable mention USILA All-American last year. There’s also Nick Vass, who missed part of last year because of an injury, and long-stick midfielder Kyle Myers. At short-stick, leaders are Sean Wagner and Robert Cressman. 

Coached by defensive coordinator Ron Garling, the unit has notably limited ranked foes Dickinson, Ithaca and Lynchburg to a combined 21 goals.

“We end every practice, every huddle, going into every game with saying, ‘On three, hard work, ’” Colfer said. “Then we talk about effort statistics, and those are ground balls and our riding percentage. It’s winning ground balls when they’re in our defensive box and not letting teams scrap a goal out of that situation.”

The most important piece, Colfer said, might be goalie Riley White, last year’s CSAC Defensive Player of the Year. He has a 6.83 goals against average and 55.9 save percentage for his career, bailing the Cavaliers out at times and keeping them in games.

But all that could be for naught given a conference shift for Cabrini this spring. The program has left behind the CSAC and is part of the newly-founded Atlantic East Conference alongside six other colleges.

That comes with a two-year transition period during which an AEC men’s lacrosse champion will be crowned in early May, but won’t result in an automatic qualifier to the NCAA tournament until 2021. That means Cabrini will have to earn an at-large bid, a goal that’s shaping up well so far, but Colfer knows it isn’t a guarantee.

“We’re just trying to be 1-0 this week and trying to string as many 1-0 days together as we can,” Colfer said. “The kids have really adopted that mentality and understand our unique position and that the margins are thin in terms of how good we need to be.”

That outlook will be put to its toughest test in the Cavaliers’ upcoming two-game stretch. They travel to York on Saturday, then host Salisbury next Wednesday.