College Crosse Prospectus: This week’s individual honors; Denver’s Mayle ineligible for rest of season; We have a game today

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, College Crosse Nation!! Thanks for making us a part of your day! Here everything you need to know for May 1, 2018.

What You Missed

Michigan’s Conor Ford, Bellarmine’s Kevin Burns and Bill Tully, and Marist’s Mike Gongas are all out as the coaching carousel has begun.

We have a new Untitled Project featuring Dan Arestia!

Our latest top 20 poll is out, with Yale remaining atop our rankings.

North Carolina and Stanford took home the first two women’s conference crowns.

Lacrosse The Nation

Before the individual honors, the Denver Pioneers announced that LSM Sean Mayle is done for the year as the senior is academically ineligible to compete in the team’s run to Championship Weekend. He’s missed the team’s last five games.

“Because of the University of Denver’s unique academic quarter system, we have to monitor our academic success twice during the regular season,” [Bill] Tierney said. “Due to a technicality with a course that Sean repeated and passed, the school and NCAA have deemed him ineligible. Not having No. 6 on the field is a huge loss for our program, especially in light of our potential playoff run, but all appeals have been exhausted. It’s time to move forward and for our defense to continue to play at a high level, as they have the last five games. Sean is one of the absolute finest young men, players and leaders that I have ever had in my career, and we will continue to support him toward graduation and enthusiastically cheer him on in his professional career.”

We also have a regular season game tonight, as VMI takes on Virginia at Klöckner Stadium! The game begins at 7 PM on ACC Network Extra. If you can’t stream the game, there’s also live stats. Plus, here’s notes from Virginia and VMI.

Now, let’s get to some of the national and conference honors for the week:

America East:

• Offensive Player of the Week: Tom Haun (Stony Brook)
• Co-Defensive Players of the Week: JD Colarusso (Albany) & Nick Washuta (Vermont)
• Rookie of the Week: Tehoka Nanticoke (Albany)

CAA:

• Player of the Week: Will Hirschmann (Delaware)
• Rookie of the Week: Luke Fromert (Towson)

Ivy League:

• Player of the Week: Ben Reeves (Yale)
• Rookie of the Week: George Baughan (Princeton)

MAAC:

• Offensive Player of the Week: Dylan Schulte (Monmouth)
• Defensive Player of the Week: Charlie Hayes (Detroit Mercy)
• Rookie of the Week: Jake Tomsik (Quinnipiac)

NEC:

• Co-Players of the Week: Brendan McCarthy (Mount St. Mary’s) & Max Tuttle (Sacred Heart)
• Co-Defensive Players of the Week: Brooks Dutton (Sacred Heart) & Mike Adler (Saint Joseph’s)
• Rookie of the Week: Mike Adler (Saint Joseph’s)

The Big Ten and SoCon release their individual accolades later today. The Big East has yet to release theirs, if they will for this week.

Here’s the USILA Coaches polls for Division II and Division III:

The MCLA released their Division I and Division II Tournament brackets.

Chapman and Utah are the top two seeds on the Division I side:

On the Division II side, St. Thomas and North Dakota State are the top two seeds. Will Carson Wentz follow along?

Former UNC lacrosse commit Ricky Miezan chose football at Stanford over lacrosse. As Callie Caplan of The Washington Post writes, the senior, along with a couple other players, chose fun over injury risks:

Miezan gave a verbal commitment to North Carolina, first for only lacrosse, then in January for football, too, until a late offer came from Stanford to play football there. Bullis junior midfielder Bryson Shaw had pledged to Maryland lacrosse before deciding to switch to Ohio State football as a safety. And South Lakes senior longpole midfielder Spencer Alston chose Ohio State lacrosse before flipping to Yale football in February as running back-wide receiver.

At a time of constant questions about the football’s safety and long-term health effects, the players’ gravitation toward it begs another: What if football is just more exciting?

“College football wasn’t in the back of my mind when I started playing, but I was like, maybe it could be a possibility,” Miezan said. “You see college football on TV, and it’s just this huge thing. It’s wild. It looked fun, obviously.”

For all three players, success in lacrosse started early. Each played for year-round travel clubs, earned national showcase invites and received recruiting attention. Miezan was the country’s No. 1 player in his class as a junior and No. 3 as a senior, while Shaw is No. 8 in the 2019 class, according to the website Recruiting Rundown.

Inside Lacrosse’s Matt Kinnear writes about Joe Amplo and building the Marquette Golden Eagles program from the ground up:

“We put a premium on investing in the right people from the beginning, and for me it’s shown that ultimately people can make things happen and people can overcome boundaries and challenges, and the more people with a growth mindset to put around something, the easier it becomes. I think Joe and his team are playing living proof of that every day,” said [Mike] Broeker.

How has it been received? Besides the on-field success, it is now the second-most attended sport outside of men’s basketball, Broeker said. Amplo said enrollment from the New York metro area has increased by hundreds. The brand is strengthening in key locations across the country.

“Athletics is the most external part of our campus,” said university president Dr. Michael Lovell, who has become a close friend of Amplo. “Look at our history, most people know who we are because of our men’s basketball team during the Al McGuire era. That’s part of our brand. Lacrosse is the next generation of what our brand is. When I go to California, they know us from basketball, but they also know us from lacrosse. When I’m in New York City, people are coming up to talk to me not just about our basketball team, but also our lacrosse team.”

Director of Athletics Bill Scholl recalls talking to an alumni group in Spring 2015 in New York and learning how counselors were talking to their high school students about Marquette because of the visibility from lacrosse.

“One of the great things about lacrosse is it’s on TV a lot in the springtime. Our alumni are seeing us on television. Other than men’s basketball and sometimes women’s basketball, it’s getting the most exposure on television,” he said. “That doesn’t happen if we don’t stay competitive. We have a very supportive Board of Trustees, a very supportive president. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to be all-in, and we’ve continue to be that way.”

Marquette lacrosse is also in the news, except with it’s club team. Niko Kakos of the school’s club team will play for Greece in the 2018 FIL World Lacrosse Championships, pens Alex Milbrath of The Marquette Wire:

Kakos almost didn’t come to Marquette; he was one step away from playing lacrosse at Tufts University, the 2014 and 2015 NCAA Division 3 national champions. However, Kakos wanted to play closer to his family in Illinois.

“One of the biggest things for me growing up was to have my family watch me play,” Kakos said. “My mom is my biggest fan, so the Midwest was really enticing.”

Kakos’ father and brother went to Marquette. He decided to send his tape to the Golden Eagles’ coaching staff, which promptly earned him an invite to prospect camp. That’s where Kakos met Marquette recruiting coordinator John Orsen, who is now an assistant coach at Denver University. Orsen implored Kakos to try out at Marquette.

“I was excited,” Kakos said. “I pretty much cut off communications with the other programs and hopes were high.”

A big rivalry win over Johns Hopkins gave Maryland’s defense their swagger back, notes Scott Gelman of The Diamondback:

The expectations for Maryland’s defense were high after the Terps allowed just four teams to reach 10 goals through the first two months this season. But recently, opposing attacks have had more success.

Penn State posted 12 scores on April 8, and Rutgers found the net 11 times one week later. The Maryland attack was able to outscore the Nittany Lions and Scarlet Knights to help the Terps win those contests, but when Ohio State notched three fourth-quarter goals, the Terps couldn’t recover.

Initially, Johns Hopkins’ attack appeared to have Maryland’s defense solved. The Blue Jays capitalized on wins at the faceoff X with consecutive goals to open the game. But after that, Maryland didn’t allow another in the half, enabling it to boast a 3-2 lead at the intermission.

”It was definitely a gut check,” said goalkeeper Dan Morris, who ended the day with 13 saves. “We take a ton of pride in our defense.”

Philly Jawns

The Sixers lost Game 1 to the Celtics. Boo.

World News

Logan Paul is done with daily vlogging. Rejoice.

Video of the Day

Mean Tweets: Avengers edition.

I haven’t seen the movie yet. I am thinking about it.

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