Army Men’s Lacrosse currently stands 5-0, 1-0 in the Patriot League, following their conference-opening win over Lafayette this past Saturday. Over the past few weeks, lacrosse news services have started saying things like, “[This year’s Army Team] might be the team to beat in 2025.”
And yeah. That might actually be true.
While the team’s success hasn’t exactly come as a surprise to this point in the season, the way that success has happened certainly has. In particular, the Black Knights have played lights-out on defense this year, allowing an average of just 4.8 goals/game, while pouring it on offensively early and thereby jumping out to consistently big leads in the first halves of every contest to date. With this, Army has controlled every game they’ve been in from at least the middle of the second quarter, throttling everyone they’ve played. Performances like this have launched the team from #12/#13, respectively, in the Inside Lacrosse and USA Lacrosse media polls, all the way up to #5/#7. Even so, the Black Knights may yet have considerable room before they hit their ceiling.
Granted, Army almost always played good defense. This year, though, they’ve looked truly incredible, even against the very high standard the team’s past play has set. Add in G Sean Byrne’s increasingly elite play, and well, friends, we might be seeing the very best defensive unit in the entire nation. It’s not just All-American D A.J. Pilate, either, though he might be the best player on the team. The Black Knights have gotten good play all the way around, including — or perhaps especially — from their defensive midfield. The team’s defense either runs out the shot clock or forces consistently bad shots almost every time they’re tested.
On offense, meanwhile, Army boasts entirely too many high-quality scoring threats. Any combination of firstie A Jackson Eicher, cow A Gunnar Fellows, cow M Evan Plunkett, and/or plebe A Brayden Fountain might go off on any given day. Eicher and Plunkett came into the season as the team’s biggest offensive “names” with the result that Fountain now has at least a hat-trick in each of his first five collegiate contests, and Fellows has hat-tricks in the team’s last three games. Eventually, some team is liable to pull their best defender off Eicher, and he’ll score eight or something. With this many scoring threats, there just aren’t any good answers.
A behind-the-back beauty from Brayden 👀#GoArmy | #FamilyToughnessTradition pic.twitter.com/P4S3LT1VLd
— Army Men's Lacrosse (@ArmyWP_MLax) March 1, 2025
Lafayette Showed the Blueprint
An unheralded yet talented Lafayette Leopards team came into Michie Stadium last weekend sitting at 3-1 and determined to make a statement. They played fast, extremely physical lacrosse for the first quarter and a half, successfully contesting faceoffs by bringing in their wings, scoring the game’s first point, and physically jamming up Army’s offense whenever the Leopards got stuck in their defensive end. With that, Lafayette ended the game’s first quarter down just 3-2 and stayed down just 4-3 through the middle of the second.
Army took control with about seven minutes to play in the second quarter and never looked back. The Black Knights scored a whopping eight unanswered goals, using a combination of make-it, take-it wins at the faceoff X, superior passing around the edges on offense, and superlative defense. Some of this surely came as a result of in-game adjustments to the Leopards’ defensive style — especially the use of passing around the edges on offense to defeat Lafayette’s physical interior style on defense — but mostly, the Army team took control because they’ve got better, fitter players, and the overmatch told over time.
Still, this game showed what we can expect throughout the rest of this season — super-physical play, especially on defense, alongside every team’s very best shot. The Black Knights have gotten to the point where the Army Game is now every team’s biggest all year. It’ll be their resume-building shot at one of the best teams in the entire country, and all of Army’s opponents know it. The Black Knights must therefore play consistent, winning lacrosse week-in and week-out. Their opponents, though, get to circle these games on the calendar and play it like it’s their Super Bowl.
As a reminder, friends, consistency is the hardest thing to demonstrate in all of college sports.
Jackson Eicher with the STUNNER 🤩
— Army Men's Lacrosse (@ArmyWP_MLax) March 1, 2025
📺 https://t.co/RKoTGqCADQ#GoArmy | #FamilyToughnessTradition | @PatriotLeagueHQ | @espn pic.twitter.com/4WXcs62XEI
Looking Forward
Army travels to Worcester, MA, this Saturday to take on the Holy Cross Crusaders (3-3, 1-0 in the Patriot League) starting at 3:30 pm. Candidly, this is a game that the Black Knights should win going away. After that, they’ll face Lehigh (1-4, 0-0 in the Patriot League) and then perennial nemesis Boston University (4-1, 0-1 in the Patriot League). Both of those games look a good bit tougher, at least on paper.
Lehigh came into the season as the consensus second-best squad in the Patriot League and hovering either just inside or just outside of the rankings, depending on which set of rankings one believes. They’ve underachieved to date in their out-of-conference schedule, but as we saw last year with Boston University, that hardly means they’re untalented. Moreover, the Mountain Hawks actually won the Patriot League last year — at West Point — despite coming in as one of the tourney’s lower seeds. Like Army, they play a physical style on defense, and they’ll be playing the Black Knights at Lehigh.
Meanwhile, Boston University has won all four of these teams’ most recent meetings dating back to 2022, including both the regular season game last year and the Patriot League Quarterfinal game that knocked Army out of both the Patriot League and NCAA Tournaments. BU may or may not have a better team than Army, but they’ve most certainly had the Black Knights’ number over the past few years. As far as this particular game goes, BU won’t be the only team that’s got it circled.
.@HCrossMLAX notched their first conference win in FOUR YEARS on a double-overtime goal 🚨🚨🚨
— TLN 🥍 (@LacrosseNetwork) March 1, 2025
…and thanks to a review, the fans got to storm the field twice! 😅
(via ESPN+) pic.twitter.com/ISmclCbzAf
Final Thoughts
Army Men’s Lax has massive potential in 2025. This could be a special year. Folks who know are starting to expect that it might be. But those expectations mean little against the week-to-week grind of the regular season.
Right now, Army needs to play consistent, winning lacrosse. If they can do that, then there might not be a team to match them on their entire schedule.
We’ll see how long they maintain excellence.
Go Army! Beat Holy Cross!!!
