Delaware 2024

[Henpecked]

This just in from Delaware AD Chrissie Rawak following the announcement of Delaware moving to conference USA:

“We currently have seven sports that are not sponsored by Conference USA: field hockey, men’s and women’s lacrosse, men’s soccer, men’s and women’s swimming and diving, and rowing. Over the next few months, we will continue to work diligently to determine where these teams will compete in the 2025 season and beyond. We will be competing in the CAA through June of 2025, and all teams except football will remain eligible to compete for CAA championships and in NCAA postseason play during that time. We will find the best option for each of these programs where they can compete for championships.

With regard to Delaware Men's Lacrosse, we have and will continue to invest in men's lacrosse moving forward. Just as we were relentless in finding an opportunity with Conference USA, we will be relentless in our pursuit of a conference for the men's lacrosse program.”

Sounds like they are gonna shop around.

[xxxxxxx]

Sources tell me Hens men’s and women’s lacrosse moving to ACC in a lacrosse only deal. I’m sorry I can’t tell source but it’s pretty legit.

[Carolinagrad]

Unless Delaware wants to be in separate conferences for men’s and women’s lacrosse, I am sorry I just don’t see Delaware in the ACC. With Florida State adding women’s lacrosse and Stanford and Cal joining the ACC in women’s lacrosse next year, i just see no way Delaware is destined to the ACC in women’s lacrosse. The A10 or Big East make sense.

[10stone5]

I don’t see the ACC,
sounds like happy talk to me - A10 is the destination in my book, several prior in conference teams, A-10 on the rise, et al.

[Farfromgeneva]

Sources tell me Hens men’s and women’s lacrosse moving to ACC in a lacrosse only deal. I’m sorry I can’t tell source but it’s pretty legit.

Is it Reddit?

[livelovelax]

Uh, Do you mean the AAC? that is more likely to happen than the ACC.

[Laxbuck]

Why isn’t Steve Shaw in the US National lacrosse HOF? Seems like an oversight to me

[Henpecked]

Why isn’t Steve Shaw in the US National lacrosse HOF? Seems like an oversight to me

That’s a mystery to me. 71% career wins at faceoff. 541career GBs. Three time All-American. Two insane seasons .774 in 1985 and .754 in 1986.

Joke parade. Should be in.

[Henpecked]

No Villanova game scheduled in ‘24. This is the first time in 22 years this game is not on the calendar. The ‘21 game was canceled due to Covid and not rescheduled.

Terrible. Looks like Lehigh took this spot.

[Henpecked]

2024 should be an interesting year for the Blue Hens. There are lots of question marks after losing Owen Grant, Tye Kurtz, Matt Kilkeary, Kevin Lynch, Kevin McCormick, Clay Miller and Jason Seiter to graduation. Obviously, Grant and Kurtz represent the biggest losses since they were among the best offensive and defensive players in the country. But not so obvious is the loss of Jason Seiter at SSDM. While his numbers don’t jump off the page (over the last two years averaged 45GBs and 9CTs), he was Delaware’s toughest one-on-one defender at midfield. He also managed to push transition quite a bit while scoring 7 goals and 5 assists over that two-year period. His toughness in taking on an opponent’s best middie will be sorely missed.

So who is going to contribute this year?
The Hens return two studs at attack -- Mike Robinson (145g 45a career) and JP Ward who has accumulated 82 goals and 75 assists in just two years as a starter. The two lefties will be joined at attack by a four-star freshman out of Wall Township NJ, John McCurry who showed amazing poise and toughness as a ball handler and distributor in his fall debut against Georgetown. He had a terrific high school career scoring 197 goals along with 133 assists (330 pts). As a senior he led all New Jersey players with 76 goals and 64 assists, which got him selected on the First Team All State squad. Impressive. Coach DeLuca will need to find a way to get Finn Morgan on the field as well. The lefty sniper showed a lot of promise last year as a freshman and should get playing time on the man-up unit. He is the heir apparent to Mike Robinson in the lefty wing attack spot.

At offensive midfield the Hens return everyone from last year except for Clay Miller. They also return Drew Lenkaitis, who only played in two games last year after suffering an injury against Mt. St. Marys. The 6’3” lefty was instrumental in the Hen’s 2022 run in the NCAAs, including two goals and three assists in the upset win over #2 Georgetown. He joins fellow lefties Nick Jessen (18G 9A), Jason Kolar (23G 8A), Brendan Powers (14g 2a), Matt Acchione and righties Cam Acchione (23g 10a), Riar Schell (8G 1A) and freshman Ethan Krauss at midfield this year. Krauss was an extraordinary player at Shawnee HS in NJ where he finished with 317 Pts in three years as a varsity starter.

The defense will be led by three-year starter Tate Wasson who is coming off his best year with 33 GBs and 23CTs. He will be joined at close defense by senior Matt Montgomery (6’3” 210 lbs) and Colgate transfer Donny Gayhardt (6’5” 220 lbs) who was a second team All-Patriot selection with 23 GBs and 12 CTs last year. I would not be surprised to see four-star freshman Louie Atkinson (The Haverford School) get some time at close defense as well. The defensive midfield returns three strong LSMs in All-CAA Joe Speers, Nick Cowen and Patrick Gillen. They will be joined by an athletic and experienced group of SSDMs that includes Reed Kurtz, Aiden Fritz, John Schievert, Brooks Bond, and Justin Sanelli. Kevin Ellington will start in goal for the Hens. He has waited three years for his opportunity to start following a stellar prep career at Loyola Blakefield. He looked very comfortable in net for the Hens this fall.

Face-offs will be handled by Logan Premtaj. He will be facing tough competition again in the CAA, but he generally ends up in the .500 range. Back up duty will fall to Canadian freshman Nolan Bolger and soph Michael Straub.

Delaware by the numbers
The Hens offense ranked #8 nationally last year with 14.72 goals a game. The Delaware defense ranked #4, giving up just 9.44 goals against. And they were #2 in scoring margin (5.28) behind just Notre Dame. Of course these stats were helped by a less-than-challenging schedule. However, they performed extremely well in post-season against Towson, Stony Brook, Marist and Duke when it mattered. DeLuca has built an extremely disciplined program that is reflected in the Hens being ranked #6 in turnovers per game, #4 in clearing percentage (.910), #8 in man-up offense (.510) and #5 in man-down defense (.739). Delaware is 56-29 since DeLuca took over in 2018. More importantly, he has gotten the Hens back in the national conversation by winning the regular season CAA championship three straight years and the conference tournament the past two years. Not to mention beating #2 Georgetown in the first round in ’22 and putting a scare into the eventual NCAA runner-up #1 Duke (losing 12-11) in last year’s opener in Durham.

The Schedule
Based on last year’s final RPI the Hens are predicted to have a less than middling schedule with, at best, five games against top 25 teams [Syracuse (22), Penn (12), Michigan (9), Stony Brook (43) and Towson (41)]. Delaware will get zero credit for playing Lafayette (49), St. John’s (61), Hofstra (58), Drexel (42), Fairfield (57), Monmouth (59) and Hampton (75). Strength of schedule will be ranked around 40th toughest. Zero chance for at-large bid unless they run the table on Syracuse, Penn, Michigan and lose in the CAA finals, and probably not even then. So it’s another CAA or bust campaign.

So who is going to challenge for the CAA in ‘24?
You can never be sure how a season will shape up, but I think the Hens will have a decent chance to three-peat as CAA champs. The main competition should come from Stony Brook and Towson, who are both returning the vast majority of contributors and should improve over last year. Stony Brook will miss both Jonathan Huber who was second in goals scored (33) and Dylan McDermott at LSM, but they return almost everyone else including All-American candidate Dylan Pallonetti (51g 19a), Blake Behlen (23g 22a), Noah Armitage (26g 19a) and Matt Anderson (29g 16a). That is a lot of firepower for sure. Towson returns nearly everyone except for Kyle Berkeley (31g 16a), defenseman Garrett Zungalia and goalie Evan Long (.520). The Tigers went 6-9 last year but lost three one-goal games and were competitive with some top teams. Towson has a lot of young talent including sophs Joaquin Villagomez (27g 10a), Mikey Weisshaar (17g 8a) and FOGO Matt Constantinides (58%). Towson’s challenge will again be taking care of the ball. Last year they averaged 17.5 turnovers a game. That is a ton. Only 13 D1 teams averaged more.

Drexel and Hofstra may also surprise some teams this year. Drexel has lost a boatload of its top players (Jack Mulcahy, Sean Donnelly, Ben Scandone, George Grippo, Brennan Greenwald, Ross Blumenthal and Patrick Udovich) but they have also added some nice young players in recent years (Luke Tomak, Connor Hooley, Max Semple to name a few) along with some interesting transfers. In my opinion, they will go only as far as Tomak can take them. And like Towson, Drexel has had a turnover epidemic over the last few years averaging over 18 per game (8th worst in D1). Hofstra is a lot tougher to figure out. They seemed to struggle with injuries last year which led to an inconsistent offensive lineup. They certainly have the players to compete, but it is more a question about staying healthy and getting more consistent on offense. Defense has always been very solid for the Pride (ranked #13 in D1 last year 10.64 GAA). As one poster on this site likes to say "don't sleep on the Dutch."

The rest of the CAA (Monmouth, Hampton and Fairfield) will struggle to make the playoffs. Fairfield won just three games in conference beating Monmouth, Hampton and a surprising one-goal victory over Hofstra on the road. Adding to the Stags challenge, they lost their top goal scorer Jack McKenna to Ohio State in the transfer portal and team leader Max Paparozzi to graduation. Not sure any of these three teams will pose a threat in the CAA, but you never know.

On a side note, this will most likely be the Hens last year in the CAA, but they will still be eligible to compete in the CAA championship even after they announce a move to a new conference. This is the result of a long-overdue change in the CAA rules (which screwed over Penn State many years ago).

[Henpecked]

A couple folks have asked me about two transfers this year. The first is Delaware native Hank D’Ambrogi who transferred in this year from Fairfield. D’Ambrogi is a big middie (6’2” 194) who played in 11 games last year for the Stags as a freshman and had 1 goal on 12 shots. He ran on the Hen’s second midfield against Georgetown this fall and really didn’t make an impression. Looked very one-handed. But again, that was a very small sample. Might make a good SSDM in the future?

The second is righty attackman TJ Gravante who transferred in from from Mt St Mary’s after one season. He scored 13 goals and had 8 assists last year for the Mountaineers. He played late in the fall scrimmage against Georgetown and seems to be pretty far down the depth chart. Again, not sure where he fits in on this squad but maybe he will play next year after Ward and Robinson move on?

It’s very rare that UD brings in transfers that don’t fill an immediate need. The last three (Lenkaitis from Vermont, Jessen from Lafayette and Lynch from Queens) played right away. But both of these guys are only sophomores so they might just need time to make an impact.

[Henpecked]

It was a pretty good day for the Hens as they closed the pre-season with a nice performance versus UMBC. Some things to consider before heading into the opener next weekend. The Hens played without starting FOGO Logan Premtaj and senior captain Drew Lenkaitis and Riar Schell among others.

So who was playing? The Hens started with OJ Morris at faceoff with Reid Kurtz and Joe Speers on the wings. Morris did pretty well in the first half winning 7 of the 12 faceoffs. After the first quarter the Hens were up 4-2 and then up 7-4 at halftime. UMBC scored four nice inside goals, two from Senior Brian Tregoning and one a piece from Jordan Galloway and Mike Doughty on a sweet inside move from GLE. The star for UMBC in the first half was goalie Jayson Tingue who had 10 saves before being replaced at the half. The Hens first half stars were JP Ward with 2 goals and 4 assists and Mike Robinson with 5 goals and an assist. Kevin Ellington played nicely with five first half saves. The defense was really terrific led by SSDMs Aiden Fritz, Kurtz, Jon Osmun and freshman Ryder Buell, LSMs Speers, Pat Gillin and Louie Atkinson, and close defenders Tate Wasson, Donny Gayhardt and Matt Montgomery. UMBC worked HARD for those four goals.

One area where I think the Hens will need to improve is with their offensive middies. I realize that they rely heavily on Robinson and JP Ward to get the defense spinning, but I think they need to be more aggressive with dodges and put more pressure on their opponents’ defensive middies. Jason Kolar had a nice goal in the first half and a shot in the crease from a beautiful JP Ward pass. Cam Acchione had a goal early in the third quarter to make the score 9-6 before DeLuca pulled all the starters. It would be nice to see Brendan Powers, Nick Jessen and others take more initiative in getting things started up top, or inverting with a shortie.

Following the removal of starters for both teams early in the third, the game was sort of a turnover-fest with the Hens ending up ahead 12-8 at the final buzzer.

One positive note off the Hens bench, Brooks Bonds had two incredible goals on rips off of alley dodges. I understand that this was against the UMBC scout team, but Bonds has shown to be an amazing athlete with great speed and wicked shot. I would hope that he gets a chance to run with the first two midfields during the season. Hank D’Ambrogi scored a late goal as well after running with the second midfield unit early in the game.

Hoping the Hens get healthy before too long. Next weekend they will need help everywhere they can get it to beat a Lafayette team that is on the upswing. Defense looks awesome though. They are brutally tough.

[westworld]

Thanks for the writeup, Henpecked! Always the best. The Hens unlikely to have Lenkaitis consistently and other injuries make it hard to run a 2nd mid line with monsters like they had last two years. Throw guys like Bond on 2nd line and let them play two ways, continue to allow Rewkowski to dominate the transition game, and show teams a different look while resting your top line. Not only does this help the 1st line o-mids, but also guys like A. Fritz who will be taking the brunt of game reps at SSDM and will also expand the offensive game past the two-headed monster of Ward and Robinson (who combined for 12pts in a game Hens scored 12 total today).

[xxxxxxx]

Great info Henpecked as always. Interesting to note Hens only play 12 games this year. Gone are the early-season Wednesday games. It wasn't that long ago they played 15. They are not alone as most teams have done the same. I understand the desire to focus on one game a week and stay healthy. However, it kills the back end of the bench as those guys never get to see any action. I don't like it, no reason why college players can't play 15+ regular season games. 50-man rosters have 15 to 20 guys who do all the work and literally never step on the field.

[Henpecked]

UD lacrosse opens the 2024 season this Saturday against a familiar opponent. The Hens have played the Lafayette Leopards 42 times and have come away with 41 wins, including a current 33 game winning streak that dates back to 1958. Most recently, the Hens beat a very young Leopards squad 14-5 last year in Easton in a game that was never in doubt. The Hens took a 12-2 lead into the fourth quarter before emptying the bench.

A lot has changed in the last 12 months. Delaware lost two legendary players to graduation (Tye Kurtz and Owen Grant) and had to rebuild its back-line defense with just one returning starter at close defense. Fortunately, that one returner starter is Tate Wasson, who has been a monster throughout his career and is coming off his best season with 33GBs and 23 CTs. Wasson will get a lot of help from his extremely physical defensive teammates including 6’2” 215 Matt Montgomery, 6’ 5” 220 lb Donny Gayhardt (Colgate transfer - 2nd team all Patriot League) and 6’2” 200lb freshman Louie Atkinson out of The Haverford School. These four will have to contain Lafayette’s physical senior-laden attack group of Charlie Cunniffe 6’2” 190lb (19g 27a), Peter Lehman 6’ 1” 200lb (29g 9a) and Kalman Kraham 5’11” 200lb (26g 12a). In last year’s game, UD held the triumvirate to just one goal on 15 shots thanks to a great performance from the recently graduated goalie Matt Kilkeary who made 12 saves.

The Leopards return sophomore goalie Joe Doherty who saw a bunch of shots last year and ended the season with 172 saves while giving up 191 goals on the year for a save percentage of 46%. The defense was pretty good, giving up just 12.8 goals a game. However, the offense was among the bottom half of Division 1 scoring just over 11 goals a game. This team, as mentioned earlier, was fairly young but finished the season with some good Patriot league wins (Colgate, Bucknell, Holy Cross) along with some close losses to Lehigh, Loyola and Boston University. So, I would expect improvement over last year’s match on both sides of the field.

Lafayette primarily used three players last year to take faceoffs and had a winning percentage of .443 (193/436). The Hens won 13 of 22 faceoffs in last year’s game when Hen’s starter Logan Premtaj was sidelined with an injury. I have no idea who will be starting for Delaware on Saturday, but they will most likely use OJ Morris (Premtaj sat out last week’s scrimmage with an undisclosed injury).

The Hens defense will be bolstered by the aforementioned close defense and returning SSDMs Reed Kurtz, Aiden Fritz, John Schievert and LSMs Joe Speers and Pat Gillen. This group played a very tight defense in its scrimmages, so I would expect the Hens to hold the Leopards to single digits in goals.

In the two scrimmages this year (Georgetown and UMBC), the Hens relied HEAVILY on Mike Robinson and PJ Ward to get the offense cranking. The big question for the Hens will be who can they count on for offense outside of Robinson (32g 16a) and Ward (42g 43a)? With Drew Lenkaitis presumably injured, I would think that middies Jason Kolar (23g 8a), Brendan Powers (14g 2a), Nick Jessen (18g 9a) and Cam Acchione (23g 10a) will be the answer to that question. Each will have to initiate from up top and gain separation from defenders in order for the Hens to equal last year’s average of 14.7 goals a game. Additionally, while freshman John McCurry has not looked overwhelmed in these scrimmages, he has often deferred to his senior partners on attack. It would be great to see him look to create offense on his own as well. He has the physicality and the talent to do so.

Hoping for a fun game. Weather looks great. Be nice to see a great performance from this experienced Hens squad. I am not a betting man, but I hope that the Hens can cover the 7 points they are giving this improved Lafayette squad. We shall see. I am sure there will be a little bit of rust from both teams.

[10stone5]

Finn Morgan, as said prior,

I’d like to them to use that guy much more.

[Henpecked]

Finn Morgan, as said prior,

I’d like to them to use that guy much more.

Finn Morgan is a lefty attackman. They already have two of those. And at midfield Powers, Jessen, Lenkaitis, Kolar and Matt Acchione are all left handed. You have no place to put him except on man-up offense until next year. He will slot in nicely to Robinson’s spot on the wing beginning next season. He’s a terrific shooter.

[Henpecked]

No real surprise yesterday. Hens shut out Lafayette for nearly three quarters and took a 11-2 lead into the fourth. DeLuca pulled the starters early in the 4th after Mike Robinson scored his 7th goal of the day to make it 13-3.

The Hens defense is playing really well as a unit (yesterday and in the UMBC scrimmage) and continues to be extremely physical. The close D of Tate Wasson, Matt Montgomery and freshman Louie Atkinson is as good as any unit I’ve seen in a long time. Kevin Ellington was spectacular in goal making 13 saves on the day while giving up just 6 goals.

The only negative was that there were times when the Hens took some forced shots early in possessions. I think a bunch of guys were trying to break the seal with a first goal of the season. They were much better when they were drawing slides and finding open teammates. Freshman John McCurry might be squeezing the stick a little too tightly looking for his for his first goal. He will be fine. Had a ton of opportunities. His fellow freshman Tyler Owings from Boys Latin had a beautiful goal on a nice pass from Hank D'Ambrogi. Lots of freshman getting opportunities to contribute including Ryder Buell at SSDM and Ryder Villani alternating with Owings on the second midfield unit.

Onto St John’s in Queens Saturday. That’s a team that is really struggling. Hope for a fun game and continued improvement.

[10stone5]

Bryson Kolinsky with a goal,

some solid freshmen this year.

[CheeseBeard]

Just want to say thank you Henpecked. Love the write-ups, probably the best on the whole site. Having guys like you and 10stone adding to the conversation really keeps things going on this board and makes the team that much more enjoyable to follow. Thanks guys