With its season opener scheduled for tomorrow afternoon against Penn State, the Binghamton University men’s lacrosse team is ready to start the 2011 campaign on the right foot.
Entering its 10th season as a Division I program, Binghamton will look to return to the America East tournament after failing to qualify for the event last year for the first time since 2003. The Bearcats, who welcomed 15 freshmen this season, were picked to finish last in the six-team conference’s preseason poll released last Tuesday.
In welcoming a bundle of young players, BU looks to replace three graduated athletes with comparable production. But for the Bearcats, replacing the 52 combined goals of Andy Cook, Steve Carlson and Jeff Rurey will not be an easy task.
“We lost three of our top six scorers, but we return our leading scorer who was a freshman last year,” said BU head coach Ed Stephenson. Stephenson was referring to sophomore Matt Springer, whose 29 goals led the team in 2010, earning him a spot on the America East All-Rookie Team.
“That was the one thing that I was looking for coming into the season, were the guys coming back that played with experience, were they going to improve,” Stephenson said. “Sometimes when you have success as a freshman, you get into a sophomore slump. Matt Springer, our leading scorer from last year, is much improved as a sophomore now, and he set a lot of records as a freshman last year for the whole group.”
Stephenson, who has been with Binghamton for the entirety of the program’s existence, stressed that defensive improvements will be a big factor in having a successful season. Yet with 15 athletes transitioning from the high school level, progress has been a challenge.
“[It’s been] quite a handful having the young guys, but we’ve got great leadership with our senior class and our captains, so we’re really looking forward to getting going,” he said. “We’ve got to add some new guys into the mix this year. We’ve got some freshmen playing, we’ve got some sophomores playing and we have some of the older guys really chipping in. It’s not easy. The guys that we lost, they had played and started for four years straight.”
Binghamton will be led defensively by senior defender Derrick Danieu, who in two seasons with BU earned two first-team All-Conference selections. But the Bearcats surrendered nearly 12 goals per contest in 2010, a figure which Stephenson stressed in the team’s preseason media day event.
“It’s pretty simple, we have to play defense,” Stephenson said. “We really struggled defensively. Coming into this year our focus was on defense. We had to improve our defense to make stops, and that will give our young guys a lot more opportunities.”
In an attempt to alter defensive looks, junior Ryan Button, who started 11 games for the Bearcats last season, will make the transition from defense to defensive midfielder.
“I love the switch, I like playing defensive midfield a lot,” Button said of the position change. “It gives me a chance to be intense out there and get on the ball and put some pressure on it. I don’t take it as a demotion, but it is a change and something I’m still adjusting to.”
On the offensive end, Stephenson has worked to keep strategy basic to aid his younger players.
“You definitely don’t want to have paralysis by analysis, so I want to keep it simple but I also want to challenge them,” Stephenson said. “That’s really what we’re trying to work with. Give them enough so we can be competitive on the field, but not too much where we burden them and they’re looking for certain plays as opposed to playing, so that’s been a challenge.”
In addition to Springer, Binghamton will rely on fellow sophomore Tyler Perrelle to keep the Bearcats competitive on the offensive end. Perrelle, who in 2010 also earned a spot on the America East All-Rookie Team, finished the season with 10 goals, tied for fifth on the team. But while the pressure to produce may weigh heavily on him, Perrelle has remained focused on working hard in practice and preparing for the upcoming season.
“The main thing is coming in and competing as hard as you can every single day,” he said.
For incoming freshmen, Perrelle offered insight on working hard and being aware of competition.
“In high school, you get very content with your spot knowing you’ll be starting every day no matter what. In college, any day you can lose your spot, and I think a lot of the guys have learned that,” he said.
As the preseason has progressed, the Bearcats are still looking to find a permanent goalie. Junior Jordan Marra, sophomore Kraig Heston and freshman Max Schefler are all competing for the position. Marra and Heston combined for a total of 10 games played last year. For Stephenson, finding the best fit has been a difficult process.
“It’s a really close battle,” he said. “In the two scrimmages we’ve had we’ve shared time. As a staff we’ve had to sit down and go over every single shot, save, look and it’s taken quite an amount of time to go through that, and we’ll continue to do that. We’ve actually been filming practices just making sure we make the right choice there, that’s how close it is.”
Binghamton’s schedule includes some challenging opponents, but three of the team’s five conference matches will take place at the Bearcats Sports Complex. In addition to facing both Penn State and Colgate on the road, BU’s non-conference schedule includes a March 1 home match against national powerhouse Cornell University. The Big Red, who own three national championships and reached the NCAA finals in 2009, are ranked fourth in the nation in Inside Lacrosse’s preseason poll.
But a challenging schedule will be positive for Stephenson’s team. Despite many newcomers, Stephenson believes his team has potential to play well as a unit.
“We do have team chemistry, and the guys seem to get along,” he said. “Those are the kind of things I look for. As a coach you can feel the energy. You can feel when things are good, and you can feel when there might be some contention, but I was really pleased with the maturity of our team.”
Though predicted to finish last in the America East, the Bearcats have remained positive and are looking forward to a successful 2011 campaign.
“We didn’t expect it, but sixth is whatever,” Perrelle said of the preseason rankings. “The poll, we heard about it, and now we’re moving on. We’re going to do our best to get better and see what happens as we play. We’re going to win as many games as we can and then we’ll see what happens later on.”
For Binghamton, a sixth-place prediction may actually be a good thing. In 2004, when picked to finished sixth, the Bearcats finished with a 10-6 record, posting an undefeated conference mark en route to the program’s first regular season championship.
Binghamton’s first opponent, Penn State, is coming off a 2-11 season and will look to improve under new head coach Jeff Tambroni. The game is set to start at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Nittany Lions’ Bigler Field.