CANTON, New York (WWNY) -The St. Lawrence Men’s Lacrosse team wrapped up the first week of their 2022 season Saturday, losing to 7th ranked St. John Fisher on the road 14-4, falling to 1-1 on the season.
Despite the loss, expectations are high with a number of key players returning from last season.
St. Lawrence enjoyed a great deal of success in what was an abbreviated 2021 season, posting an 8-3 record, 5-2 in Liberty League play.
The Saints advanced to the Liberty League Championship game where they fell to eventual national champion RIT.
The Saints enter the 2022 season ranked 11th nationally in Division 3 with a veteran group returning, led by pre-season honorable mention All-American’s Mark Mahoney and Joe Scarfi.
”I think we just have to worry about what we’re doing each and every day to make daily improvements. We’ve got a nice group coming back, so I think that maybe leads to some of the expectations on the outside. But as far as we’re concerned, it’s about that day to day practice and every opportunity that we get to step on the field. Hopefully we can put our best foot forward,” said Coach Mike Mahoney.
The Saints return 2 of their top scorers in Mahoney, who tallied 20 goals and 16 assists and senior Jack Hennessey, who led the team with 26 goals and 8 assists last year.
Add to that a veteran defensive group, senior goalie Will Helm back between the pipes and a strong group of underclassmen. The Saints are a balanced squad in every phase of the game.
”Yeah, I think we’re for the most part, pretty well balanced. We have a lot of guys who love to compete, which obviously, you really look for and hope to have. We’re definitely excited about the group we have both offensively and defensively,” said Captain Mark Mahoney.
”Every season’s different, but definitely having that experience with some of the underclassmen coming back they’ve grown tremendously. Kudos to them over the off season. I’m expecting big things out of them,” said Captain Jack Hennessey.
”Expectations are no less than a Liberty League championship. The rest takes care of itself, but that starts with taking one game at a time, taking one practice at a time and those things will build up on each other,” said Scarfi.
Speaking of the Liberty League, the Saints open conference play on March 25th when they play host to Union, currently ranked in the top 15 in the nation.
With RIT ranked number one and Ithaca, R.P.I and Clarkson always strong, every week will be a battle for the Saints.
”Yeah, it’s a great league, it really is. I think that makes it a lot of fun and makes every opportunity a challenge. We’ve got 5 more non-conference games coming up here in the first half of the season, but then we jump right into things with a really good Union team and we’ll see RIT at the very end of the conference schedule,” said Coach Mike Mahoney.
With Mahoney leading his teams to 18 post season berths in his 24 years at the helm of the Saints program, odds are St. Lawrence will be right in the thick of it for a Liberty League title and a trip to the NCAA tournament this season.
On the ice, St. Lawrence met Brown in the 3rd and deciding game of their ECAC opening round playoff series at Appleton Arena.
This game goes to overtime, 46 seconds in Reilly Moran nets the game winner as the Saints beat Brown 4-3 in overtime and advance to the ECAC Quarterfinals.
The Clarkson Golden Knights, meanwhile, enjoyed an off weekend before the start of the men’s ECAC quarterfinals kick off on Friday night.
The Golden Knights earned a 1st round bye and enter the tournament the 2nd seed after finishing ECAC regular season play with a 14-4-4 record.
Coach Casey Jones’ squad has been red hot since the new year began, posting an 11-3-1 record.
Jones says the Golden Knights turnaround can be attributed to a couple of key factors.
”I thought 2nd half we started getting, got some guys back. Anthony Callin came back off of the injury list and kind of gave us some depth offensively and we started scoring, so that’s kind of where we took off. I think the evolution of our young D core back there have really kind of added to our ability to produce. So a lot of things kind of went well 2nd half. We ground through, I think we got confidence to come back in games,” said Jones.
The Women’s NCAA Division 1 Hockey Championships were announced and Coach Matt Desrosier’s Clarkson Lady Golden Knights received an at large bid.
The 22-11 Lady Golden Knights will travel to Madison Wisconsin to face the 25-7 Wisconsin Lady Badgers on Thursday night in opening round action.
The winner of that contest will face 3rd seed Northwestern on Saturday with a trip to the frozen four on the line.
The Watertown Wolves were in action at the Alex T. Duffy Fairgrounds Ice Arena,, hosting Binghamton in game 3 of their weekend series.
The Watertown Wolves falls to Binghamton 4-2.
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