2013 College Lacrosse Preview: ECAC Coaches Pick Loyola as League Favorite

It's buried in the ECAC's media guide, but it's a real thing: The league's coaches sent emails or communicated on a fancy soup-can-and-kite-string network or something and put together a preseason poll for the upcoming season. Don't believe me? To the press release!

Defending national champion Loyola University of Maryland has been selected a unanimous pick to defend their Eastern College Athletic Conference Division I Lacrosse League Championship in 2013 as the top team in the ECAC pre-season coaches’ poll. Led by the ECAC pre-season Defensive Player of the Year Scott Ratliff, Loyola opens the season at Delaware on February 19.

This is how the rest of the poll shook out:

1. Loyola
2. Denver
T-3. Fairfield
T-3. Ohio State
5. Air Force
6. Hobart
7. Bellarmine
8. Michigan

There's nothing in the release that details the specific voting, so it's tough to see how the coaches are grouping the teams. I'm going to assume, then, that Loyola received the majority of first-place votes, a brand new Cadillac, and a letter of distinction from the Prime Minister of Sweden. Every other team in the poll received a handwritten note on conference stationary with a frowny face and the words "Why can't you be more like Loyola? They're national champions" on it. The ECAC has a weird dynamic; none of us can totally understand.

With respect to individual honors, the coaches basically looked at Loyola's starting 10, crossed off the names they couldn't pronounce, and filled in the blanks:

A: Mike Sawyer (Loyola)
A: Logan Schuss (Ohio State)
A: Wes Berg (Denver)
M: Davis Butts (Loyola)
M: Jeremy Noble (Denver)
M: Josh Hawkins (Loyola)
M: Sam Snow (Fairfield)
D: Joe Fletcher (Loyola)
D: Reid Action (Loyola)
D: Carson Cannon (Denver)
SP: Chase Carraro (Denver)
G: Jack Runkel (Loyola)

Schuss was named the conference's preseason offensive player of the year, Ratliff took home defensive honors, and Denver's Gordie Koerber was named the league's preseason rookie of the year. For more on the ECAC in 2013, check out College Crosse's preseason outlook.