Service Academy Lacrosse Muster: Army women, Navy, and Air Force rack up victories

This past week looked better for service academy lacrosse across the board. We saw some career high scoring, school records, and first time hat tricks. Let’s take a look and review each teams performance.

Army Men

The Black Knights suffered their first Patriot League loss against Lehigh, losing 11-8 Saturday. Army was off to a strong start with Nicholas Garofano scoring a goal in the first minute of the game but the Mountain Hawks answered with four goals in the first quarter, holding off Army going into the second, 4-1.

Army dominated the second quarter with three goals scored by Liam Davenport, Matt Manown, and Sean O’Brien. With three seconds left in the second half, Lehigh found a goal, putting them one point ahead of the Black Knights, 5-4 at the intermission.

Lehigh had a nearly identical performance from the first quarter in the third, outscoring the Black Knights 4-1 and giving themselves a four goal cushion heading into the fourth. That lead proved too much to overcome as Army eventually fell 11-8.

Army found 29 ground balls total on Saturday with Johnny Surdick and Tom Rigney having five each.

Lehigh was also the first non-ranked loss for the men’s team and set them back in the Patriot League standings in the early going. This week, Army will go on the road till take on Binghamton on Tuesday, March 12 at 4:00 pm before returning to conference action against Holy Cross this weekend.

Army Women

In their fifth straight win at home, the Army women’s team secured a 14-12 victory against Virginia Commonwealth on Saturday.

The Black Knights managed double-digit goals for their seventh straight game with Jackie Brattan leading the team with a team-high of four goals and her sixth hat trick this season. In all, three Army players notched hat tricks on the day as Manuela Cortes and Rilee Scott also added three goals.

Rilee Scott opened the game with the first goal, her fifth this season, with an assist by Olivia Carter. VCU quickly answered with another goal but Army was able to hold the Rams off for about seven minutes. On the defensive end, Lauren Bredenburg racked up four caused turnovers and four ground balls. By the end of the first half, Army was leading 10-5.

The Rams notched two goals in the second half, before Jackie Brattan, Caroline Raymond, Rilee Scott, and Manuela Cortes each scored one goal apiece leaving Army at 14-7 by the 16:30 minute mark.

VCU managed five goals, trying to close the gap with a furious rally but a turnover caused by Taylor Korpela gave the possession back to the Black Knights with 46 second left on the clock, securing the victory for Army and moving them to 7-0 on the year heading into Patriot League action.

They are one of the most impressive, if not THE most impressive improvements on the women’s side since last year which should make for some really fun conference action as they look to make the Patriot League tournament for the first time in history.

The Black Knights break up their three weekend of home games and will travel to Philadelphia, PA, to meet Villanova on Tuesday, March 12 at 3:00 pm before taking on preseason favorite Loyola at home on Saturday in what will be a huge test of just how far Army has come in the last year.

Navy Men

After a tough loss against Princeton, the Mids came back to notch a Patriot League win against Lafayette, outscoring them 12-7.

Navy was able to hold the Leopards to just two goals in the first half, staking themselves to a commanding 8-2 lead at the break. Christian Daniel and Jack Sweeney had a combined six goals and Ryan Kern managed 16 saves for the second time this week, helping bump the Mids to 2-0 in Patriot League play.

Navy will travel to Baltimore to face off against Loyola, the defending Patriot League champion Saturday, March 16 at 1:00 pm. This will be a huge matchup for both schools as they look to remain undefeated in conference this year.

Also not to be missed in the past week, former player Matt Rees will be playing for Chaos LC in the new Premier Lacrosse League and Navy senior Greyson Torain was selected 16th in the MLL Draft by the Chesapeake Bayhawks.

Navy Women

Coming back after a tough loss to Boston College earlier in the week, Navy clinched a 18-12 victory against Brown on Saturday.

The Mids 18 goals were led by Kelly Larkin and Andie O’Sullivan who made a combined 11, with Larkin clocking in a team-high of six scores and O’sullivan making five on the afternoon.

After Brown scored back-to-back goals in the first half to go 3-1, Navy answered with 5 goals of their own and never looked back, eventually stretching that to a 10-2 run en route to a 11-5 lead at the half.

Freshman Reagan Roelofts made school history collecting 11 of the Mids total 21 draw controls, tying for seventh best during a game in Navy history. She also notched three goals.

During the second half, the Bears couldn’t manage to ever really grab any momentum. After opening the period with two goals, Navy answered with two of their own, keeping the gap at six scores. Larkin and O’Sullivan took over from there, adding five goals between the two of them to push the lead back out again, eventually securing the 18-12 victory.

The Mids will see their first Patriot League opponent of the season when they take on Colgate on Saturday, March 16 at 3:00 pm in Hamilton, NY.

Air Force

The Falcons took it to Detroit Mercy in a mid-week tilt, scoring a season high 19 goals on the way to a ten goal victory that saw four Air Force players register hat tricks last Wednesday.

Trey Lervick led the team that afternoon with four goals and one assist.

Lervick, Tom Baker, Matthew Schwartz, and August Johnson all scored goals to open up the first period. By the end of the half, Air Force managed a seven-point lead at 12-5.

In the third and fourth quarters, the Falcons dominated with three and four-straight goals, respectively. Detroit Mercy was only able to score four goals in the entire second half, stretching the seven point halftime lead to ten to close out the game.

If you want to see some of the work the Falcons did to Detroit Mercy, just look at these two behind the back goals from Trey Lervick!

Air Force will go on the road to Macon, Georgia to meet Mercer on Saturday, March 16 at 12:00 pm. This will be the first Southern Conference game for the Falcons this season!

We also had an Air Force draft pick this week as the Denver Outlaws selected Falcons senior and team captain Brandon Jones with the 36th overall pick!