Thursday 21 February 2013

Gettysburg College men's lacrosse team has high hopes

An experienced Gettysburg College men's lacrosse team will take to the field with high hopes this season.

Twenty letterwinners and 15 players who started a year ago return for a Bullet squad that is coming off an 11-7 campaign in which it reached the Centennial Conference playoffs and the second round of the NCAA Division III Tournament.

In the preseason, Gettysburg earned three national rankings, checking in at No.12 by Lacrosse Magazine, No. 15 by Inside Lacrosse's "Face-off Yearbook," and No. 16 by the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association.

The Bullets are directed by 26th-year head coach Hank Janczyk, who has a career record of 368-115, will be aided by two new assistants in Chris Perzinski and Dan Sharbaugh in addition to student assistant Caldwell Rohrbach, an All-Centennial Conference performer at Gettysburg last season.

Offensively, the Bullets return their starting attack line from the end of last season in junior Martin Manilla, sophomore Robby Maddux and senior Evan Thomas.

Manilla landed second team All-Centennial Conference honors a year ago after leading the Bullets in goals (36) and points (41). Maddux piled up all of his 28 goals over the final 11 games last year. Thomas, a team captain, also returns after starting four games in 2012 and finishing with eight goals and five assists.

Other Bullets who could push for playing time on the attack include junior Henry Tesar and sophomore Adam Narwicz.

In the midfield, the Bullets

return another All-Centennial Conference performer in sophomore Bijan Firouzan, who captured honorable mention last year. Firouzan started the final 16 games of the year and finished as the team's third-leading scorer with 10 goals and 14 assists.

Two additional starters return to the midfield while freshmen could also contend for playing time.

Senior Ryan Fumai is back after finishing third on the team with 15 goals. Classmate and captain Bobby DeWees returns after posting nine goals. Freshmen Mike Distler, Tim Murphy and Jameson Smith will likely see immediate action.

Defensively, two of the team's starting defensive midfielders return in senior Ian Casella and sophomore Andrew Toner. Casella, a team captain, was named second-team All-Centennial Conference as a long pole last season after finishing second on the team in both ground balls (35) and caused turnovers (19). Toner contributed 18 ground balls and three assists as a short-stick middie.

Other Bullets who could see time in the defensive midfield are junior long stick Alec Mitchell and sophomores Nick Alibrandi and Jack Harvazinski.

Three defenseman who started at some point in 2012 also return in senior Matt Canter, senior Phil Thompson and sophomore Alex Lanza. Junior Charlie Whiteley could also see playing time on the back row.

Gettysburg is also equipped with a pair of highly-experienced goalies in senior J.T. McCook and junior Jon Maddalone, who split time between the pipes last season. McCook, who started every game in 2011, finished 5-3 with a 8.70 goals-against average over nine games and eight starts in 2012. Maddalone went 6-4 with a 7.93 GAA and .557 save percentage while playing 12 games and starting 10 times, including all three of the team's postseason contests.

The Bullets will also return two familiar names on face-offs in senior Nick Avedisian and junior Wes Lincoln. A regular at the X since his freshman season, Avedisian, a team captain, won 53.0 percent of his attempts (123-for-232) last year and led the team with 52 ground balls. In 2012, Lincoln finished at 60.7 percent (65-for-107) while picking up 28 ground balls.

Gettysburg kicks off its season on Saturday, when it visits Messiah College at 1 p.m.

Source: http://www.eveningsun.com/localsports/ci_22638189/gettysburg-college-mens-lacrosse-team-has-high-hopes?source=rss

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