The Good, The Bad, & The Future: Ivy League

With the offseason now in full swing, it’s time to look back at the 2017 season! We’ll dissect all the individual teams from worst to first based off my final Power Rankings later during the summer.

But first, we’ll dissect each conference and return The Good, The Bad, & The Future series. We won’t talk a ton about each team until the individual dissections, but this should be a good quick glimpse at each team. The last time we did this thing, we recapped the Big East teams. We’ll now take a look at the teams from the Ivy League!

So let’s get started!

Dartmouth Big Green (2-11)

The Good: The Big Green earned good wins over Vermont and UMass Lowell. Sophomore attackman Ben Martin finished second on the team with 24 points, and was tied for the team lead with 21 goals.

The Bad: Another year of being in the cellar of the Ivy League, and it doesn’t seem to get better for Dartmouth. Wiley Osborne and Richie Loftus are key seniors that depart.

The Future: How can Dartmouth improve? It’s a very tough task, but Martin and goaltender George Christopher return to lead the Big Green.

Harvard Crimson (6-7)

The Good: Harvard began with a surprising 4-0 record. And junior Morgan Cheek added a team-high 67 points.

The Bad: After that 4-0 start, the Crimson ended up going 2-7 the rest of the season. Add to that the losses of coaches Ben DeLuca to Delaware and Eric Wolf to LIU Post (add Lacrosse Operations Coordinator Noah Fossner to Delaware as well) in the offseason and could Chris Wojcik be coaching for his job next season?

The Future: Only four seniors leave the team, the big two being defenseman Ryan Norton and LSM Matt Ryan. Cheek, Joe Lang, and goaltender Robert Shaw all return, and Wojcik reportedly will bring in Stephen Toomy and Justin Turri as assistants next season. Can they make some noise in 2018 after making the Ivy League Championship game two seasons ago?

Cornell Big Red (5-8)

The Good: Jeff Teat. He finished with 72 points with 33 goals and 39 assists, all three of them team-highs. I believe he had more points this season than anyone else on the Cornell roster for their entire career. They went 5-3 to end their season, which included a one-goal win against Princeton.

The Bad: The team started 0-5 with a bad loss to Hobart in February. Matt Kerwick resigned at the end of the season, and Peter Milliman was named the team’s interim head coach, but how long might he last? The team loses Marshall Peters and Walt Gahagan on defense, as well as starting goaltender Christian Knight.

The Future: Teat should help improve the Big Red offense next year along with classmate Connor Fletcher and midfielder Clarke Petterson.

Penn Quakers (7-6)

The Good: A then-good early win over Virginia in February (as well as in April), and the team has plenty of young talent on offense from Simon Mathias and Kevin McGeary, to freshman Keyveat Postell. Oh, and add Connor Keating, one of the best LSMs in the nation.

The Bad: The Quakers suffered some head scratching losses to Michigan and a blowout one to Princeton, and ended the season on the wrong-side of a 4OT game to Yale in the Ivy League semifinals. It seems like Penn can’t beat the Bulldogs. They will lose defenseman Kevin Gayhardt to graduation.

The Future: Plenty of the team returns for 2018, which includes goaltender Reed Junkin and defenseman Noah Lejman, who missed all of last season with an injury. How will Penn be able to stay alongside the rest of the Ivy League?

Princeton Tigers (9-6)

The Good: Is Princeton back? After blowing out third ranked Johns Hopkins at home, 18-7, the Tigers pretty much stayed in the top 20 rankings for the remainder of the season. Freshman Michael Sowers was the best freshman in the entire nation, and will be a playmaker for the remainder of his college career. Gavin McBride led the nation in goals with 54 goals, and Zach Currier did it all, but was robbed of First Team All-American honors.

The Bad: The Tigers may have taken a small step back late in the season with losses to Lehigh and Cornell, before bowing out to Brown in the Ivy League semifinals. Princeton loses McBride and Currier, along with starting defenseman Bear Goldstein and reserve defenseman Alistair Berven, as well as midfielders Adam Hardej and FOGO Sam Gravitte.

The Future: Sowers is back and should improve on his very good freshman campaign, along with juniors Riley Thompson and Austin Sims. If Sims has a healthy season, he could be one of the best midfielders in the nation. Don’t forget fellow freshmen Arman Medghalchi and Chase Williams, as well as goaltender Tyler Blaisdell. Could they be a darkhorse pick next year?

Brown Bears (10-6)

The Good: Mike Daly’s first year in Providence didn’t start of so hot, but the Bears went 9-3 to finish the season after starting 1-3, and topped it off winning five of their final six games. They reached the Ivy League championship game, something Dylan Molloy was never able to do under former head coach Lars Tiffany. For a new-look team, they did alright.

The Bad: The 1-3 start began with an ugly 25-17 loss to Stony Brook, and also suffered notable losses to Princeton (10 goals) and Yale (six goals) before finding their groove late. Molloy, Alec Tulett, and Larken Kemp are notable losses, and the latter two are big considering how weak the team’s defense mainly was last year.

The Future: Freshmen attackmen Luke McCaleb and Jack Kniffin return, along with midfielders Stephen Hudak (a La Salle College High School product) and Michael Panepinto, as well as defensemen Max Gustafson, JJ Ntshaykolo, and Jake Miller. Phil Goss looks to improve on his freshman year campaign, and Ted Ottens returns as the team’s top FOGO.

Yale Bulldogs (10-6)

The Good: Ben Reeves was a tank once again, leading the Bulldogs to another Ivy League championship. He wasn’t himself for the first few games of the regular season as he battled with an injury, but he became his old self at the right time. He got help from freshmen Jackson Morrill and Matt Gaudet at attack, with Eric Scott manning the midfield.

The Bad: Even though it didn’t do much harm to get the Bulldogs into the NCAA Tournament, their 1-3 start was tough, and so were the back-to-back one-goal losses to Albany and Harvard before the Ivy League Tournament. And yeah, they were a victim of the Syracuse one-goal games. Scott, John Lazarsfeld, and defensemen Camyar Matini, Brian Pratt, and Charlie Better all depart.

The Future: Yale is going to be a dangerous team come 2018. The starting attack remains, as well as Lucas Cotler, and the midfield is still loaded with Joe Sessa staying among others. Phil Huffard has the inside edge of being the starting goaltender, and FOGO Conor Mackie went nearly 60.3% on face-off draws last year. The Elis will be hungry for more.