Friends, Army’s 2025 lacrosse season has finally come.
Two years ago, Army Men’s Lacrosse entered the season without a lot of fanfare. But they adopted the motto “Keep the Change,” ran through damned-near everyone in America, and finished in the NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals within a split-second of advancing further.
The Black Knights then entered 2024 as the expected frontrunners in the Patriot League. Alas, despite getting off to a hot start and eventually earning the program’s first-ever #1 national ranking, they lost to Boston University twice, crashed out of the Patriot League Tournament in the semi-finals despite having home-field advantage, and ultimately failed to qualify for the NCAA Tournament at all. The team finished 11-3 overall and ranked 16th nationally, so we can’t exactly say that they had a bad season. Despite that, they also didn’t exactly meet fans’ lofty expectations following wins over perennial powerhouse programs Rutgers, Syracuse, and North Carolina. Moreover, missing the Tournament in the same year they’d been ranked #1 sucked a lot.
New Season, Same Expectations
2025 might be a new season, but it comes with familiar expectations. The Black Knights enter the season ranked 12th by Inside Lacrosse. USA Lacrosse has them 15th. The team lost a few key contributors to graduation, but they remain a talented, experienced unit. Moreover, they’ve once again been picked to win the Patriot League, earning 14 of 18 first place votes in the League’s preseason poll.
All of this looks exceedingly familiar.
The question, then, isn’t, “How talented is this team?” nor is it, “How good can they be?” This team has plenty of talent. They can compete with anyone. We know this.
How will this team deal with the new season’s expectations? Can they be consistent enough to avoid an April slump and pay off all their hard work with a Tournament bid?
In a sense, earning last year’s first place ranking became a problem because it meant that any loss became a BAD loss. These guys kicked the crap out of Rutgers and then beat Syracuse in the Dome. After that, their first loss to Boston University looked like disaster. Nevermind the fact that BU returned a ton of fifth-year seniors in 2024 and entered the season ranked 18th. BU had gotten off to a slow start, and anyway, the #18 team really shouldn’t beat the nation’s #1 team — at all — much less 14-9.
Against that, though, stands the reality that consistency might be collegiate sports’ most challenging aspect. Winning every game is really hard. It’s especially hard against conference rivals who have plenty of talent and lots of familiarity with your team’s strengths and weaknesses.
This, then, sets the season’s challenge. The Patriot League has a ton of good teams but probably not enough great teams to put more than one into the NCAA Tournament. Thus, the Black Knights need to win the League in order to fulfill their season’s promise. But that is way easier said than done, especially since several of the League’s teams also enter this season either ranked or just outside the rankings.
To this end, Army Head Coach Joe Alberici sets the team’s non-conference schedule up every year to try to give his team a chance to earn an at-large bid. We therefore see a compelling non-conference slate to accompany an increasingly competitive conference slate, featuring several ranked teams and a whole lot more than just one conference contender besides the Black Knights.
2025 Schedule
Inside Lacrosse has Yale starting the season at #9 and UNC starting at #16. USA Lacrosse starts Yale at #8, UNC at #17, and Patriot League foe Lehigh at #20. Both polls show Rutgers and Patriot League foe Colgate receiving votes, while Inside Lacrosse adds Lehigh, Loyola, and Navy receiving votes. We should probably note, too, that UMass has historically made the NCAA Tournament about as often as Army has, and that this particular match-up almost always ends in a one-goal victory.
Friends, this is a really hard schedule! And yet, the Black Knights might still be favored in all of these match-ups save their road game at Yale.
Consistency will be key. We can’t say it enough. These guys will have to play their very best lacrosse every single week because not only do they have a lot of legit competition in their future, but every team on this schedule will have this game circled as one of their season’s key games.
Army ain’t sneaking up on nobody. This is where we are to start the 2025 season.
Returning Players
As noted, the Black Knights have some dudes coming back this year.
The Patriot League picked cow M Evan Plunkett, the League’s reigning Offensive Player of the Year, as their preseason Offensive Player of the Year for 2025. They picked firstie D A.J. Pilatte, reigning two-time Defensive Player of the Year, to be this year’s preseason Defensive Player of the Year. Inside Lacrosse further picked Pilatte as the 22nd-ranked player in the country. The Patriot League picked firstie FOGO Will Coletti, the reigning Patriot League Faceoff Specialist of the Year, to be their preseason Faceoff Specialist of the Year. Inside Lacrosse picked him as the nation’s 15th-best player overall. The League further picked A Jackson Eicher and SSDM Christian Mazur for its preseason All-League team.
Besides those four guys, the Black Knights return A Gunnar Fellows, an All-Name selection for a lacrosse attackman if we’ve ever heard one, G Sean Byrne, LSM Christian Fournier, and DM Casey Reynolds, fresh off his stint as Army’s leading wide receiver in football. Fellows, in particular, had a productive 2024 campaign with 26 goals plus 8 assists. Goalie Byrne, meanwhile, returns a 55.1% overall save percentage from last season, which included a 61.3% performance against North Carolina and a 70.4% performance against Navy.
All of this provides plenty to build on.
As the season progresses, we’ll watch to see who emerges on defense opposite Pilatte and in Army’s defensive midfield, a perennial team strength despite the team not placing anyone on the preseason lists ahead of the upcoming season. Eicher, Plunkett, and Fellows make a formidable scoring trio for the Black Knights, but this team is at its best when it’s getting production from all over the offense. So we’ll also watch to see who brings the outside hammer that the team got last year from Reese Burek and Jacob Morin.
The Black Knights won’t do it with just three guys on offense. They’ll need at least one more reliable shooter. Similarly, the team’s defense will force plenty of ground balls and turnovers. But they’ll need to clear those stops into their offensive end consistently to beat all of the — very good — teams on their schedule.
Army Women’s Lacrosse
Army Women’s Lacrosse comes into the season with plenty of potential but a lot less fanfare. Coaches picked them third in the Patriot League behind perennial powers Loyola and Navy. The League further picked cow M Brigid Duffy and cow A Allison Reilly for the preseason All-Patriot League team. Duffy further comes into the season as Inside Lacrosse’s 13th-best player nationally. The Black Knights also return star G Lindsey Serafine.
Ironically, though the Black Knights have more legit name players on offense, they probably also need to develop more legit scoring threats on that same end to take the next step. This team rarely gets blown out, especially when Serafine is at her best, but everyone in America knows that the Black Knights want to get the ball to Duffy in crunch time. That’s not the way to get past truly great teams.
Army’s Women beat Navy and qualified for the NCAA Tournament in 2023, but they didn’t have a standout 2024 season despite coming in ranked 15th nationally. The team needs a few more standout performers to get back to where they probably should be heading into 2025.
Opening the Season
Both Men’s and Women’s Lax open their seasons on Saturday, February 8th. The Women open at home against Rutgers. The Men open on the road at UMass. Both games start at noon, presumably on ESPN+.
Rutgers’ Women finished 8-10 last year but beat Army 16-9 at Rutgers. The UMass Men finished 6-8 overall and fell to Army, 13-12, in a neutral site game in Atlanta, GA, to open the season last year.
We’ll get our first taste of what 2025 is gonna look like next week!
Go Army! Beat UMass!!! Beat Rutgers!!!
