Army dropped a tough home loss to Colgate on freaking Senior Day this past weekend, putting them on the outside looking in as they attempt to qualify for this year’s NCAA Tournament. The team is still ranked 12th in the nation, but candidly, those rankings no longer remain relevant. The Patriot League will send exactly one team to this year’s tournament, and it’ll be the League champion.
Despite Army FOGO Will Coletti winning 22/24 faceoffs, Army somehow struggled to maintain possession throughout this game. Colgate’s defense made a concerted effort to take Army Attacker Jacob Morin out of the game while simultaneously pushing the pace relentlessly all over the field. As a result, long portions of this contest got played in transition. Army played better when they forced the game into settled offensive situations, but even then, they never truly broke through Colgate’s defense.
Statistically, the Black Knights all but dominated this game. They outshot the Red Raiders 47 shots to just 31 and 29 shots-on-goal to just 20 for the Raiders. They also forced 30 turnovers vs. allowing 24 of their own. They succeeded on 21/24 clears against a ten-man ride even as Colgate managed just 27/35. Finally, the Black Knights picked up *40* ground balls against ‘Gate’s 27.
All of that should have been more than enough to get a win. Instead, Raiders’ Goalie Matt LaCombe made a whopping 18 saves, often at point-blank range, and the Black Knights struggled to find an answer. Statistics aside, Army looked a step slower than Colgate all game long, and so they never settled and found their rhythm on either side of the ball.
Friends, this Army Team had better figure it out quickly. They’re currently tied with Loyola and Lehigh for fourth place in the League’s standings, and they’ve got Navy coming to town this weekend. If they don’t win out in the Patriot League — and maybe even if they do! — they’ll find themselves playing in the quarterfinal round of the Patriot League Tournament. That’s not a death sentence, but it definitely is taking the long way around to the Championship Game.
Operation #WhiteoutMichie is underway.#NOW | #FamilyTraditionToughness pic.twitter.com/u0QxTEu3hf
— Army Men's Lacrosse (@ArmyWP_MLax) April 8, 2024
Beat Navy!
The Squids are 7-4 on the season but 4-1 in the Patriot League. They beat Mount St. Mary’s and Hofstra to open the season but then dropped games at Towson and at home to Penn State, making them 2-2 in the season’s early going. They then opened Patriot League play by beating BU, 16-9, before losing to Lehigh, 12-10. They then beat Johns Hopkins and lost to Villanova before returning to League play, where they’ve now beaten Holy Cross, Colgate, and Lafayette in successive weeks.
Candidly, the Squids got a little lucky that they caught BU early in League play, before the Terriers got their season back on track. However, Navy’s win over Colgate impresses, standing in sharp contrast against the way Army played that same team just this past weekend.
Thought Attacker Xavier Arline has been Navy’s most well-known offensive weapon the past few years, junior Attacker Henry Tolker might actually be That Guy. Tolker has become the team’s shooter with 24 goals and 4 assists this season, putting an impressive 71% of his shots actually on-goal. Arline, though, leads the team in overall points with 29, 16 goals plus 13 assists. Add in Midfielders Max Hewitt and Dane Swanson — with 40 points between them — and the Mids boast a formidable attack.
Interestingly, Navy is running with plebe FOGO Zach Hayashi on restarts. Hayashi has gone 139/245 overall (56.7%), which is not bad but also probably not good enough to win against Will Coletti. Goalie Dan Daly has 126 saves this season, good for 54.1%. He’s backed by a much better defense than the Mids have fielded in recent years.
Three-game heater for @NavyMLax 🔥
— Navy Athletics (@NavyAthletics) April 6, 2024
Highlights from today's 10-9 win at Lafayette: pic.twitter.com/UUHhvchMa6
Final Thoughts
Overall, Navy has done well when they’ve been able to get good offensive production early in games. With the exception of their close loss to Lehigh, when Navy has lost, it’s been in games in which they’ve struggled to find the net early. Army will therefore need to start fast, avoid bad passes and stupid mistakes, and slowly work to dominate time-of-possession. As we say seemingly every week, Coletti will give the Black Knights a substantial advantage off restarts. The Black Knights will need to make those work with controlled offense and high-quality looks to win this all-important game.
A Special Coaches Show edition coming up on Thursday!
— ArmyWestPoint Sports (@GoArmyWestPoint) April 9, 2024
⏰6:30 PM – @MTumolo35 & @ArmyLaxCoach
⏰ 7:30 PM – @CoachJeffMonken
📍The Firstie Club
💻 Live on Youtube
🍽 Food Specials from 6:30 – 7:30 PM!
MORE → https://t.co/9zdefZYGuS#GoArmy pic.twitter.com/AAKDdYAUj4
Saturday’s weather looks to be cloudy but dry and quite windy with temperatures in the mid-50s. Army Sports has called for a White Out in the stands, but I would humbly suggest taking a white windbreaker. It’s liable to get chilly out there as the day progresses.
Faceoff goes at 1 pm. We didn’t mention the Women in this write-up, but they’re also playing Navy this weekend down in Annapolis. That game is scheduled to start at 4:15 pm and should be a good one. Army’s Women got off to a slow start but have recently strung a bunch of wins together in a row.
CBS Sports has coverage of both contests.
Cheer loud, friends. We really need this one.
Go Army! Beat Navy!!!
Pics via Army West Point Lacrosse on Facebook.
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