Setting the Stage
• Inside the Game: Coming off a pair of victories last weekend against Mount St. Mary's and Queens, Navy (2-0, 0-0 Patriot League) will make its first road trip of the 2023 campaign when it travels to Long Island this weekend. The Mids will face Hofstra (0-1, 0-0 CAA) at James M. Shuart Stadium with faceoff slated for 2:00 pm. Navy is led by Joe Amplo, who owns a 20-11 record in four seasons at the helm of the Navy program, while Hofstra's Seth Tierney has amassed a 127-100 record in 17 seasons as its head coach. Saturday's contest marks the 21st meeting (Navy, 14-6) in a series that dates back to 1965.
• Follow the Action: The Navy-Hofstra contest will be streamed via FloSports (subscription based) with Christian Gardecki and Michelle Rabinovich on the call. Live stats will also be available on NavySports.com(.) There will be no radio coverage for Saturday's game due to the Army-Navy men's (1:30 pm) and women's (11:00 am) basketball doubleheader in Annapolis.

Navy Quick Hits
• Hofstra Homecoming: Three members of the Navy coaching staff are Hofstra graduates and all three All-America lacrosse players - head coach Joe Amplo is a 2000 grad, assistant coach John Orsen is a 2006 grad and volunteer assistant coach Blake Miller is a 1996 grad. Saturday's contest marks the fourth time Amplo has faced his alma mater as a head coach, including the second-consecutive year while leading the Navy program. Amplo led Marquette to victory in back-to-back seasons with an 11-9 win in 2014 and an 11-10 win in 2015 - both games were played at Hofstra. Last year, the Mids dealt the Pride a 13-6 loss on Long Island.
• The Race to 100: Co-captain Patrick Skalniak (Sr / M) is looking to become just the 37th player in program history to reach the 100-point career scoring milestone. Skalniak heads into the Hofstra contest with 88-career points, having produced 51 goals and 37 assists. Among the list of Navy's 100-point scorers, 16 players have added their names to the list in the last 25 years, including Christian Daniel (122) in 2021, Greyson Torain (132) in 2019 and Ryan Wade (119) in 2019. More than 40 years after graduating, Jeff Long remains the Mids' all-time leading scorer with 233 points (84-149).
• Ryan Takes Top Goalkeeper Prize: Navy's Pat Ryan (Sr) was named the Patriot League Men's Lacrosse Goalkeeper of the Week after spearheading a defensive effort that held Mount St. Mary's to just 2 scores in the opening half and without a goal for the first 12 minutes of the contest. Ryan yielded just 2 goals while making 10 saves in 30 minutes of action. Navy took advantage of its depth a day later, when Ryan paired up with starter Dan Daly (Fr)  to hold Queens scoreless in the first half of a 19-5 victory. Ryan played the final 6:14 of the opening half to help the Mids secure their first opening-half shutout since last year's victory over Mercer in which Navy held a 7-0 advantage at the break. Ryan closed out the weekend with an 83.3 save percentage (10Svs) and a 3.31 goals-against average (2GA) in 36 minutes of action.
• Mids Picked Third: Navy has been picked to finish third in the 2023 Patriot League Preseason Poll. Defending Patriot League Champion Boston University secured 15 of the 18 first-place votes to top the poll for the first time in league history. It's the first time since Loyola joined the Patriot League in 2014 that the Greyhounds were not the preseason favorite. Loyola was selected to finish second, followed by Navy, Army, Lehigh, Bucknell, Colgate, Lafayette and Holy Cross. Navy's Patrick Skalniak (Jr / M) and Jackson Bonitz (So / D) were also named to the Preseason All-Patriot League Team for a second-consecutive year.
• Back to Back: Navy opened up the 2023 campaign last weekend by playing a pair of games in a 2-day span (W, 13-7 vs. Mount St. Mary's / W, 19-5 vs. Queens). It marked just the third time in program history Navy has played on back-to-back days and the first time since 1975. Navy met Maryland in the 1975 National Championship Game on May 31 (L, 20-13) in Baltimore before facing archrival Army the following day (W, 10-5) in Annapolis. In 1945, Navy played 2 games on the same day. Navy defeated Cornell 20-1 on May 5 and followed with a 14-0 rout against Dartmouth later that day.
• Double Digits: Navy scored 10 goals in the second quarter of its 19-5 victory over Queens last Sunday. It's the first time the Mids have reached double digits in a single frame since the Mids put up 10 goals in the third quarter of a 28-10 victory over Delaware on April 11, 1978. Even more remarkable, 9 different players accounted for the Mids' 10 goals during the second-quarter run (Jack Flaherty, Henry Tolker, Xavier Arline, Jon Jarosz, James Flannery, Sam Dracobly, Tommy Hovivian, Jeff Lachenmeyer-2, Carter Ash).

Scouting Hofstra
• In his 17th season leading the Hofstra lacrosse program, head coach Seth Tierney saw his Pride drop a 10-7 road decision to Merrimack last weekend in their opener.
• Hofstra mounted a furious comeback in the 4th quarter, but its 5-1 run would not be enough to overcome falling behind 9-2 over the first three quarters.
• Hofstra returns 4 of its top-5 point producers from 2022, including Gerald Kane (So / A) who was the team's leading scorer a year ago with 38 points on 23 goals and a team-best 15 assists. Also returning are Rory Jones (R-So / M / 20-8=28), Matt Elder (Gr / M / 11-13=24) and Justin Sykes (Sr / M / 14-3=17).
• Kane, John Madsen (So / A/M) and Trevor Natalie (R-Fr / A/M) each punched in a pair of goals against Merrimack, while Griffin Turner (So / M) chipped in a goal.
• Mac Gates (Sr) started all 15 games a year ago and owned a 10.96 goals-against average and 52.3 save percentage. In last week's Merrimack contest, he made 11 saves, while allowing all 10 goals.
• Chase Patterson (Sr) dominated the faceoff game against Merrimack where he won 15 of the 21 draws (71.4). He also led the team with 9 ground balls. Patterson shared the faceoff duties a year ago with now-departed Brian Herber with Patterson winning 91 of the 195 draws (46.7) he took
• The Pride forced 9 Merrimack turnovers, including 3 by defenseman Tom Ford (Gr).

Navy vs. Hofstra - The Series
• Saturday's contest marks the 21st meeting between Navy and Hofstra and only the second since the two programs met in the opening round of the 1999 NCAA Tournament (Hofstra 15-7).
• Navy owns a 14-6 series advantage, however, the Pride have won 3 of the last 4 meetings. The Mids snapped a 3-game skid against Hofstra last February when they scored a 13-6 victory on Long Island.
• Navy owns an 8-3 mark in games played in Hempstead.

Program Ties
• Rivals on the playing field, Navy's Joe Amplo and Hofstra's Seth Tierney are also longtime friends.
• Tierney served as an assistant coach under John Danowski at Hofstra from 1995-00, while Amplo, an All-America East defenseman, played for the Pride from 1996-99.
• Amplo served in a grad assistant role at Hofstra from 2000-01 before accepting a full-time assistant position at Penn in 2002. He returned to Hofstra in 2003 where he served under his former head coach John Danowski from 2003-06. Tierney, meanwhile, was named Hofstra's head coach in 2007 and kept Amplo on the staff where he would remain through the 2010 season. Amplo left his alma mater for Marquette where he was named the program's first head coach on Feb. 4, 2011.
• Amplo, Tierney and Danowski were reunited in 2018 as members of the Team USA coaching staff. Amplo served as the defensive coordinator for the gold-medal winning world championship team in 2018, while Tierney served as the offensive coordinator. Danowski, meanwhile, has served as the head coach for the men's U.S. National Team since 2016. All three, along with Loyola head coach Charley Toomey, will coach Team USA at the 2023 World Lacrosse Men's World Championship in Southern California.
• This will be Joe Amplo's third appearance against his alma mater as a head coach (won twice at Marquette) and first as the Mids' skipper. Meanwhile, this will be the first time Seth Tierney has played Navy as a head coach.

Road Rules
• The Mids own a 230-180-4 (56.0) all-time record in true road games and a 15-13 (53.6) mark in neutral site games.
• Since the beginning of the 2004 campaign, Navy has won 56 of its 112 (50.0) true road contests.
• Navy has had a losing record on the road in 6 (2010-11-13-14-17-20) of the last 13 years. The Mids are 6-7 under Joe Amplo in 3 seasons.
• Navy will play 7 games on the road this season - Feb. 11 at Hofstra, Feb. 25 at High Point, March 21 at Villanova, March 25 at Holy Cross, April 7 at Loyola and April 28 at Bucknell in the regular-season finale.
• Navy has won road games against nationally-ranked opponents in each of the last 2 seasons. The Mids dealt #15 Loyola a 14-12 loss at Ridley Athletic Complex in Baltimore on April 17, 2021 and earned a 12-11 overtime victory against #6 Army at Michie Stadium in West Point on April 23, 2022.
• The 12-11 overtime win at #6 Army marked the highest-ranked team Navy has defeated overall and on the road since defeating #3 Yale in New Haven, Conn. on May 15, 2016, in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.