3/7/2003 - Men's Lacrosse
Navy Lacrosse Travels To Massachusetts For ECAC Opener
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The ninth-ranked Navy lacrosse team will make its way north this weekend to face No. 7 Massachusetts in each team's ECAC Lacrosse League opener. Game time is set for 1 p.m. Saturday at Garber Field.
Both teams enter Saturday's contest with undefeated records three weeks into the season. The Mids shelled Marist in their weather-shortened opener, 12-1, while clipping Ohio State, 13-10, and most recently a thrilling four-overtime 9-8 win over North Carolina. The Minutemen have routed each of their opponents, including a 17-7 victory over Stony Brook last weekend.
The contest also pits this week's ECAC Offensive Player of the Week vs. the ECAC Defensive Player of the Week. UMass senior attack Kevin Leveille is coming off a 10-point effort against the Seawolves in which he scored seven goals and added three assists. Meanwhile, his counterpart, Navy sophomore goalkeeper Seth DiNola (Ballston Lake, N.Y.), turned away 12 UNC shots in the Mids' overtime win. Perhaps a more ironic twist to the story is that the Leveille and DiNola families are longtime friends.
"The DiNolas and Leveilles are more than familiar with one another," said Navy head coach Richie Meade. "Seth and Dustin attended the same high school as Kevin Leveille at The Albany Academy and were teammates."
While Meade has been impressed with Leveille's effort, he is also aware of UMass' other threats.
"Kevin Leveille is an outstanding player, but UMass is more than just Kevin Leveille," Meade pointed out. "They have quite a few guys on their team that stand out on both offense and defense and Coach Cannella has the program going in the right direction."
Some of those other players Meade was talking about include midfielders Chris Fiore and Jeff Zywicki. Fiore, a First-Team All-ECAC selection last spring, has already netted nine goals, while adding an assist as UMass' second-leading scorer. Zywicki has produced five goals and provided assists on three additional goals for eight points. He is second on the team in ground balls, scooping up 11 setting up on the wing of face-offs.
Speaking of face-offs, the Minutemen lost their top-two face-off specialists from last year, Craig Conn (124-for-240, .517) and Dan Paccione (86-for-157, .548). Rookie Dan Collins has taken 41 of the 49 face-offs in the combined pair of games this year, owning a .610 face-off percentage.
Defensively, sophomore keeper Bill Schell is giving up seven goals a game, while warding off 20 shots on goal. As a rookie a year ago, Schell started 11 of 12 games in which he played and produced a 9.97 goals-against average and a team-best 120 saves.
Navy, meanwhile, has been strong on both sides of the ball, particularly on offense. Averaging 11.33 goals per game as a team, Navy has been led by its youth. Sophomore Graham Gill (Medford, N.J.) owns a team-high seven goals, adding in two assists for a team-best nine points. Last season, Gill netted only three goals, but thanks to a five-goal effort at Ohio State two weeks ago, he is well above last year's mark. Freshman Ian Dingman (Deferiet, N.Y.) is the Mids' second-leading scorer producing three goals and four assists. In Navy's one-goal victory over the Tar Heels last Friday, Dingman found the back of the net on back-to-back shots, while providing the game-winning assist. Fellow rookie Jon Birsner (Levittown, N.Y.) has come off the sideline to score four goals and add an assist for five points. Birsner's speed allows him to distance himself from his opponents, while his crafty stickwork has created goal-scoring opportunities.
All-American middie Greg Conklin (Syracuse, N.Y.) has been nothing short of impressive in his senior campaign. Conklin has scored six goals this spring, including a trio in the Mids' 13-10 road win at Ohio State.
Defensively, DiNola has been solid in the goal, giving up 19 goals (6.33) over Navy's three games. Though he entered the season having played less than 13 minutes in varsity action, Meade has been quick to shoot the validity of that statement down.
"A lot of people have made a big deal out of Seth playing only 12 minutes last year, but he played in 10 JV games as a freshman," said Meade. "I think that was a valuable experience. He wasn't standing on the sidelines, he was playing against other teams and gaining experience."
Navy and the Minutemen are tied up in the series at two wins apiece. The Mids won the first-two battles (1979, 2000), while UMass has claimed victory in each of the last-two meetings (2001, 2002). The Mids lost their only game played in Amherst, an 11-8 decision March 10, 2001. In each of the last-three games contested between the two squads, the game has been decided by three goals, including UMass' 13-10 win over the Mids last spring in Annapolis.
G-o N-a-v-y
