Sophomore midfielder Grant Skipper leaves the Lily Center after a team
meeting on thursday evening. The team has lost a number
players since last season.
SAM CARAVANA/THE DEPAUW
2014 was a year of firsts for DePauw’s fledgling men’s lacrosse program.
In its second year of existence, the Tigers picked up their first win, collected their first North Coast Athletic Conference victory and recorded the first winning streak in the program’s history on their way to a 3-12 overall record and a 1-6 record in conference play.
After opening the season with a 7-4 loss against Rhodes College, the Tigers put up back to back wins defeating Elmhurst College and Hope College 14-6 and 8-6 respectively. After back-to-back losses, the Tigers got back to .500 with their first ever NCAC win, a 19-5 decision on the road at Hiram College.
That’s when things went bad.
The Tigers closed out the season with nine straight losses including a 14-0 shutout at the hands of Whittier College and a 21-0 defeat at the hands of eventual NCAC champion Denison University.
“It’s a new season,” sophomore Dan Kantor said. “We’re using last season as a learning year.”
The Tigers did manage to finish seventh out of eight teams in the NCAC, one spot ahead of Hiram who went 0-7 in conference play.
“The reason a lot of us came to DePauw is because we want to become one of the best teams in the nation and in order for that to happen we have to beat some of the best teams in the nation like Denison and OWU,” sophomore AJ Schlaff said.
That 3-12 record doesn’t look as bad when looking at the lack of experience on the DePauw roster, however.
Jack Russell and J.R. Strubbe were the only two seniors, there was a nonexistent junior class and Jackson Mote was the only member of the class of 2016. Besides those three, the entire roster was made up of first-years seeing their first glimpse of competition on a NCAA level.
While they may have been young, however, last spring saw the emergence of a dominant class ready to bring the Tigers to prominence in the sport.
Led by players like Robert Lapp, the class of 2017 has the future looking bright for the young program.
Lapp led the team in goals with 24 and was tied for the team lead in points with 30. Adam Bridges scored 22 goals but tied for the team lead in assists with 8 giving him 30 points as well. Also contributing was classmate Sam Caravana who pitched in with 17 goals of his own.
While those three led the charge for the Tigers, two of them will not be returning. Both Bridges and Caravana won’t be featured on the field this year for DePauw, leaving Lapp as the only player with a double digit goal total from a year ago.
The Tigers will be young once again in 2015, as Mote is the only returning upperclassman. The class of 2017 has been shrunk down to 13 and the incoming class of first-years will have 10 athletes.
“The difference between the sophomores and the freshman now is that we know what we’re competing with,” Kantor said. “We’ve seen the competition before, we know the level of game.”
The Tigers may have to look to players like sophomores Sam Alkema and Benton Givens to step in and fill the offensive void left by some of their classmates. Alkema was fourth on the team a year ago with his nine goals and seven assists giving him 16 points. Givens also chipped in with four goals of his own.
“As a program, we don't care about guys that aren't on the team, we have guys that can do just as well if not better,” Schlaff said.
However, for players like sophomore Benton Givens, lifting DePauw lacrosse to prominence is a major pull to stick things out.
“That’s one of the reasons I came here,” Givens said. “Being able to look back and say that I was on the group that kicked it off, got the ball rolling, that’s really the initial goal.”
The Tigers will look to get that ball rolling this weekend when they travel to Rhodes College to open their season on Saturday afternoon.