2019 Men’s College Lacrosse Year In Review: #47 Saint Joseph’s Hawks

With the 2019 college lacrosse season complete, it’s time to look back at how all 73 teams did during the season, along with an early look at each squad for 2020.

Note: These are not end of season rankings.

Here’s our last five Year In Review posts we’ve done:

• #52 Harvard
• #51 Manhattan
• #50 Marquette
• #49 Siena
• #48 Navy

To see all of our posts, check out the 2019 Year In Review section on the site.

Let’s continue our 2019 Year In Review!

#47 Saint Joseph’s Hawks

Conference: NEC
2019 Record: 7-7 (3-3 in NEC)
Head coach: Taylor Wray (8th Season)

Statistical Leaders

Goals: Nate Patterson and Ryan Doran (18)
Assists: Nate Patterson (21)
Points: Nate Patterson (39)
Faceoffs: Zach Cole (169-of-270; 62.6%)
Ground balls: Zach Cole (102)
Caused turnovers: Liam Hare (22)
Goals against average: Mike Adler (10.61 GAA)
Save percentage: Mike Adler (53.1%)

Personnel Losses

Key seniors departing: D Thomas Tarleton (11 CTs, 23 GBs), M Thomas LaRose (3 Gs, 1 A, 1 GB)
Senior scoring departing: 4 of 224 points (1.8%)
Senior starts lost: 15 of 140 (10.7%)

Season Summary

At the beginning of the season, Saint Joseph’s was picked to finish sixth in the Northeast Conference after losing just over 80% of their scoring and ²⁄₃ of their starters from a year ago. It was going to be a very young team, with just three seniors on the roster in 2019.

In the end, the Hawks finished fifth in the conference with a 3-3 record to go with a 7-7 record, just one game behind fourth. And even though St. Joe’s missed out on the conference tournament, it can easily be seen as a successful season.

St. Joe’s started with two big wins over St. Bonaventure and Fairfield before suffering two big losses to Providence and Delaware. The team ended nonconference play with two losses to Drexel and Penn at the Philly 4 Lacrosse Classic, the former seeing Drexel mount a four-goal rally in the final quarter to win, in-between a win over Monmouth and a win over NJIT.

Then came conference play, with the Hawks alternating between a win and a loss for the remainder of the year. Their best win was a 12-11 overtime victory at home over Hobart, which saw Nate Patterson score the game-tying goal with one second left in regulation before Matt Tufano tallied the game-winner. But needing a win and some help in the final game of the regular season against Mount St. Mary’s, St. Joe’s could not get a tying goal in the final 9:08 of regulation and saw their season come to an end against the Mountaineers.

Despite having a young team, the Hawks had 16 players start at least one game this season, which isn’t bad. Tufano, Ryan Doran, and Shane Fable were all freshmen or sophomores at attack. Nate Patterson also started the season at attack before moving up to midfield later in the year with a bevy of midfielders, including Nick Vernacchio, Evan Campbell, Austin Strazzulla, Teo Domic, and Zach Mantei.

Defensively, Tyler Makar was the leader of the defense and was joined alongside Thomas Tarleton, the team’s lone senior starter, as well as Liam Hare. Josh Bosher was another key long stick defender, with Andrew Chilson and Jack Anderson being short stick defenders. Mike Adler had another good season in goal, but the biggest highlight of the season may have been freshman FOGO Zach Cole, who went 62.6% from the faceoff X with 102 ground balls and six points. He was named the NEC’s Rookie of the Year.

Looking Ahead

There is a lot to look ahead with the Hawks in 2020 with the majority of the team coming back and another class of freshmen coming in.

The rising senior class is not that much larger than it was this year with four players instead of three. Hare, Makar, and Bosher are the three main contributors in that class. But after them, it’s still a junior and sophomore heavy roster.

All of St. Joe’s leaders on offense and defense are returning, which should mean another year of building constant chemistry. With Robert Morris losing more of their team after going back-to-back in the NEC, it could be the right time for St. Joe’s to capture their first ever Northeast Conference championship crown.