GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, College Crosse Nation! Thanks for making us a part of your day! Here’s everything you need to know for December 20, 2018.

College Crosse News

Jake & Ryan dropped a special Christmas College Crossecast episode last night.

Jake and Ryan have to come up with television shows that they will absolutely hate but critics will love. These are the results.

Last year, Jake and I had the completely self-centered idea of bringing our DM conversations out of the darkness and making a Christmas special out of that. But they say the holiday season is about putting others before yourself. So this year, we reached out and asked what you’d like for us to do for this year’s episode.

The Bonnies have arrived! St. Bonaventure released its inaugural schedule yesterday.

For the past 638 days since the announcement of its inception as an NCAA Division I program back in March 2017, the St. Bonaventure men’s lacrosse team has celebrated a series of firsts. Now, the Bonnies officially have their first schedule as their inaugural season kicks off Feb. 2.

“We are very excited to be playing real games. It’s been a long time coming,” St. Bonaventure head coach Randy Mearns said. “We’ve gone through a lot of learning experiences. Our players have been working extremely hard trying to get better every day and the culmination of all that hard work is coming in 2019.”

The very first opponent for the Bonnies is High Point as the Brown and White travels to North Carolina for a non-conference game against the Panthers of the Southern Conference. High Point went 6-8 overall after a challenging out of conference slate, but finished 6-1 vs. SoCon foes last season to tie for that conference’s regular season crown.

Next up in our 2019 schedule breakdown series is Hobart!

The Hobart Statesmen are the 53rd team in our 2019 schedule preview series and the fifth team from the NEC. The Statesmen finished 4-10 in 2018 and 1-5 in the NEC. Hobart failed to qualify for the NEC Tournament, two years after hosting the conference tournament as regular season champions.

Circle These Dates

2/16 (at Siena): A tough loss for the Statesmen against the Saints last season. Hobart scored five goals in a little over a 10 minute span to tie the game at 11 with 12:13 left to play. But Siena’s Keenan Cook scored the game-winner with 3:06 left to play to give the Saints a one-goal victory.

2/26 (at Colgate): This was a wild turn of events when these two teams played last year. The Raiders led 8-2 at the end of the first quarter in what looked like a big win for Colgate. But down four goals in the fourth quarter, Hobart stormed back with a 5-0 run to take a one-goal lead before Joe Delaney tied the game at 11 for the Raiders. The Statesmen would prevail with Justin Scott’s sixth goal of the day with 3:23 to play.

BOSSES Breschi & Levy signed extensions with UNC men’s lacrosse & UNC women’s lacrosse, respectively.

Jenny Levy and Joe Breschi won’t be leaving Chapel Hill anytime soon.

Levy, the two-time NCAA championship-winning women’s lacrosse coach at North Carolina and head coach of the U.S. national team, and Breschi, who led the Tar Heels to an NCAA title in 2016, both signed contract extensions with the university that will keep them there through the 2023 season.

Entering her 24th season at North Carolina, Levy is among the best coaches in women’s lacrosse history. She ranks third in NCAA Division I history in career wins and is a two-time National Coach of the Year. She was named the head coach of the U.S. national team in November of 2017. She enters 2019 with a career record of 329-113, including 72-31 in ACC play, in 23 seasons.

Noelle Lambert founded the Born To Run foundation. Wednesday the foundation donated its first prosthetic blade to 3-year-old boy on his birthday.

One week shy of his fourth birthday party, an Amherst boy received the best gift his family could ask for, all thanks to a foundation started by another Granite Stater who suffered her own loss just two years ago. Noelle Lambert was a star athlete at Londonderry High School, playing lacrosse for all four years and serving as captain her senior year, during which she was also named most valuable player. She also played soccer and basketball for Londonderry .... Earlier this year, Lambert made headlines when she scored a goal for UMass Lowell in her first game back after the amputation. She also founded The Born To Run Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing child amputees with a specific prosthesis that will allow them to run again. The first of those children was Isaak Depelteau, who received his first prosthetic blade on Wednesday.

Siena love the kids!!

GOOD QUESTION!

This is a work of art.

What’s Up, PhilaJersey?

Truly blessed: NJ Transit says work done on Atlantic City/Philadelphia Rail Line.

NJ Transit said it has met year-end requirements for federally mandated safety improvements on the Atlantic City Rail line — but when the line will reopen is still up in the air. State elected officials have been given different timetables on the matter. Representatives for the agency would not say when the line would be operational, but they are “committed to reopening the Atlantic City Rail Line in early 2019.”

Reached Wednesday, Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo’s office referred all comments to a news release it issued last week, in which Mazzeo and Assemblyman John Armato, both D-Atlantic, said the line would be reopened “towards the first of the year.”

World/National News

Someone save this pig.

The MSPCA’s fattest pig “Amy” is up for adoption. Amy has been at MSPCA’s Nevins Farm in Methuen since Sept. 27. Her Franklin owners bought the 2-year-old potbelly in 2016 and thought they were getting a “mini pig.” But Amy grew and grew to the point where they could no longer keep her and had to surrender the pig to the farm. The MSPCA says Amy’s owners fed her everything from meat and vegetables to cookies and donuts.

Your GIF/Video for December 20, 2018

KEVIN!

That’s it for today!! I’ll see you out there!! Make sure you follow us on social media!

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Managing Editors: Safe Fekadu, Chris Jastrzembski, Ryan McDonnell