Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 5/7/19
From Press Release
Continuing his stellar success on and off the field, Lehigh men’s lacrosse junior Conor Gaffney (Lenape-NJ, Duke’s LC) has been named Patriot League Scholar-Athlete of the Year for a second straight season.
Enjoying a 3.99 GPA as a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Finance, Gaffney is the fifth two-time Scholar-Athlete of the Year honoree in Patriot League men’s lacrosse history, and first since Brendan Buckley of Army in 2012 and 2013.
Gaffney was also named a CoSIDA first team Academic All-District honoree and third team Academic All-American as a sophomore. The Mount Laurel, N.J. native owns multiple 4.0 semester and has been named to the Dean’s List every semester. He has also been named to the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll and garnered the Faculty Athletics Council Award.
Gaffney was also named to the Academic All-Patriot League team for a second straight season; he is one of just two honorees on this year’s team to also be named first team All-League on the field.
Gaffney is now a two-time first team All-League honoree as well, winning 2019 Patriot League Faceoff Specialist of the Year. He has proven to be one of the top players at his position, standing No. 4 in the country with his 69.0 percentage (216-of-313) before last weekend’s Patriot League playoffs.
Gaffney’s resume was impressive heading into the tourney, now owning the program record for groundballs in a game (16), season (currently 126) and career (currently 323). Against Robert Morris this season, he collected 16 GBs for the second time in his career, also winning a school-record 24 faceoffs (on just 29 attempts). Gaffney’s groundball totals for this season and his career are good for second and fourth in Patriot League history, respectively. His 216 faceoff wins are No. 2 in league history and he has won at least 60 percent of his faceoffs in 13-of-15 games this season. Gaffney was named Patriot League Faceoff Specialist of the Week three times this season, his third coming Monday.