A little less than 22 years ago, Bill Tierney won his first Division I Men’s Lacrosse National Title with the University of Princeton, beating Syracuse 10-9 in double overtime. A few years of fluctuating playoff success had finally culminated in a championship. Under the direction of Tierney, the Tigers went on to win six National Championships in nine years starting in 1992 and appeared in eight championships overall.
Tierney was in his fifth year at Princeton when the dynasty began in 1992. This season marks his fifth year as head coach at DU.
It would appear the Pioneers are on the cusp of something big.
“This is my fifth year here, and [in] my fifth year at Princeton we won a National Championship, our first one, and honestly we had further to come there than we did here,” Tierney said. “Winning national championships are things that [require] a lot of hard work and having the right chemistry, but I do think we have here is a lot of talent, a lot of chemistry.”
History has a funny way of repeating itself, yet the Pios’ chances of actually doing so this season are no laughing matter. DU entered the season ranked fourth in the nation, and outscored the Air Force Academy 12-2 in the second and third quarters on the way to a convincing 14-8 win in their season-opener this past weekend. The Pios would also be making history if they were to win a title, as they would become the first team west of the Appalachian Mountains to have done so.
“I’m proud that, even though we would downplay this early season ranking because it’s basically based on what we did last year, people are looking at us and saying that this is a real good lacrosse team,” Tierney said.
Two NCAA Tournament Semifinal appearances in the last three seasons, along with three Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) regular season championships have marked the Tierney era at DU. That’s not to say the Pios walked away from last season totally unscathed. As Tierney put it, the team lost “a lot of good players from last year, three in particular that were just phenomenal.”
These three particulars—shifty attackman Eric Law, do-it-all midfielder Chase Carraro and speedster Cam Flint—accounted for 36 percent of Denver’s 236 goals scored last year.
You could write a book just from the accolades awarded to these players during their time at DU. Law was the team’s top point-getter last year (78 points), with 43 goals and 35 assists, and Flint was a United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) First-Team All-American. Carraro ranks fifth in DU’s Division I record books with a .571 faceoff winning percentage and second in ground balls with 329. The faceoff-specialist also took at least 200 draws each of his four years at Denver.
A Pioneer defense that ranked No. 21 in the nation in scoring defense (9.63 goals allowed per game) lost starting close defenseman Kyle Hercher and Drew Babb to graduation as well.
“I’d say we might be a little bit more inexperienced on defense,” said senior goalie Jamie Faus. “But I think we are going to be more athletic and more capable to defend guys one-on-one, and maybe cause turnovers this and make more defensive stands.”
Two-year starter and junior Carson Cannon will return to anchor the defense, as well as sophomore Pat Karole, Matt Kramer and senior defensive midfielder Terry Ellis, who was also drafted by the Outlaws in the 2014 MLL Draft.
Faus himself will join Ellis on the Outlaws this next summer, but before doing so he will stand between the pipes for the Pioneers for a final season. Faus split time in goal with junior Ryan LaPlante and recorded a 5-4 record in net and made 97 saves on the year. Most recently, Faus made eight saves and allowed five goals through three quarters against Air Force.
“Jamie clearly knows its his senior year so he’s got a little bit more feeling of ‘this is it,’” Tierney said. “So he had a little edge in the fall. But right now Ryan is really playing well as well so we could split them. We know we have the best tandem in the country, that’s for sure.”
Along with Faus and LaPlante returns the team’s top goal scorer from last year, junior attackman Wesley Berg, as well as senior midfielder Jeremy Noble. Berg tallied 56 goals last season, fifth highest in the nation. The right-handed Canadian looked true to form Saturday against Air Force, scoring a team-high five goals.
Noble battled a hamstring injury much of last year, yet still managed to grab USILA Honorable Mention All-America honors. He posted a goal and four assists in the win over Air Force.
New faces also marked the Pios’ impressive win, with attackman and sophomore Hartford-transfer Jack Bobzien tallying four goals and two assists. Bobzien, along with freshmen Zach Miller (three goals, one assist vs. Air Force) and Tyler Pace (one goal, two assists vs. Air Force) will undoubtedly play key roles for an offense looking to replace the voids left by Law and Flint.
This season also marks Denver’s first year in the Big East conference, after spending four years in the ECAC. Three of the conference’s teams, including Denver, were preseason ranked in the top 20 teams in the nation by USILA (including Villanova and St. Johns). The Pios’ non-conference schedule will make the road to a national title even harder, with Duke, Notre Dame and Penn all ranked in the top 10.
“These are the kind of universities that we want to be affiliated with on a lot of scales,” Tierney said. “[But]we’re certainly not backing down to anybody.”
