Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 12/6/18
From Press Release
With high expectations entering the 2019 season, the Lehigh men’s lacrosse team has been ranked 13th by Inside Lacrosse in its Face-Off Yearbook, as unveiled on Wednesday. It marks the Mountain Hawks’ highest ranking in the publication’s annual yearbook since standing eighth heading into the 2013 campaign. Lehigh is the second highest-ranked Patriot League school, only trailing Loyola at No. 4. In total, the Mountain Hawks are set to face four top-15 opponents this coming season.
Following last season’s run to the Patriot League Championship Game, Lehigh was ranked eighth in Baltimore Sun’s early 2019 rankings and 11th in Christian Swezey’s way-ahead rankings for Inside Lacrosse. The Mountain Hawks return plenty of talent in 2019. Seniors Andrew Pettit (Tower Hill), Lucas Spence (Springfield-Delco) and Tristan Rai return at attack after combining for 172 points last season (104 goals, 68 assists).
Lehigh’s leading defensemen all return, as senior Craig Chick (50 groundballs, 41 caused turnovers), sophomore Teddy Leggett (61 groundballs, 20 caused turnovers) and senior Eddie Bouhall (41 groundballs, 24 caused turnovers) combined for 152 groundballs and 85 caused turnovers a season ago. Junior Conor Gaffney (Lenape) won 59.4 percent of his draws last season (214-of-360) with 101 groundballs while sophomore James Spence tallied a 9.03 goals against average between the pipes. Lehigh also features Inside Lacrosse’s No. 8 ranked incoming class.
The Mountain Hawks will face a challenging schedule in 2019, which includes four teams in the top 15 of IL’s rankings, all on the road: Loyola (4), Cornell (5), Virginia (8) and Rutgers (12).
Lehigh will open its season at NJIT on Saturday, Feb 2 before returning home to host Hofstra on Saturday, Feb. 9.
