Loyola Greyhounds 2021

[Matnum PI]

The Loyola-Richmond game was originally scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 13, but it has been pushed to Sunday, Feb. 14, due to forecasted weather in the Richmond area. The game is scheduled for 1 p.m. on ESPN+

Loyola Greyhounds vs. Richmond Spiders
Sunday, February 14, 2021 | 1:00 p.m.
Richmond, Va. | Robins Stadium

Quick Hits About The ’Hounds
Loyola University Maryland opens its 80th season of men’s lacrosse on Sunday, February 14, when it travels down Interstate 95 for a game at the University of Richmond.

The game is scheduled for a 1 p.m. faceoff and will stream live on ESPN+.

Dating back to March 23, 2016, Loyola is averaging 12.61 goals over its last 67 games. It has scored less than 10 only 10 times in that span.

Loyola was picked first in the Patriot League Preseason Poll by conference coaches. Ryan McNulty was named the Preseason Defensive Player of the Year, and he was joined on the Preseason All-Patriot League Team by Matt Higgins, Kevin Lindley, Aidan Olmstead, Peter Swindell and Cam Wyers.

Lindley ranked third in NCAA Division I in both goals (60) and goals per game (3.53) in 2019.

Bailey Savio set Loyola records in 246 faceoff wins, 471 attempts and 141 ground balls during his sophomore season. In the truncated 2020 season, he was winning faceoffs at an even higher pace. In six games, he had won 90 of 131 (.687) restarts and picked up 62 ground balls to lead the Patriot League in both.

Looking Back
Loyola played six games and went 4-2 before the 2020 season was cut shot by the COVID-19 pandemic and college sports shutdown.

Aidan Olmstead led the Greyhounds in points with 22 that were evenly split between 11 goals and 11 assists.

Kevin Lindley, meanwhile, had a team-best 19 goals and Peter Swindell was the midfield’s leading scorer with nine goals and seven assists, both career-highs despite the shortened year.

The Greyhounds’ defensive unit finished the campaign ranked seventh nationally in scoring defense (8.67) while the man-down was third, yielding just one goal during the year.

Bailey Savio was first in the Patriot League in both face-off winning percentage (.687) and ground balls per game (10.33), categories in which he was fifth and sixth nationally.

Ryan McNulty anchored the defense and transition, causing 11 turnovers and picking up 23 ground balls while also scoring two goals and assisting on a pair.

At the end of the truncated season, McNulty was named a Second Team All-American by Inside Lacrosse, and Savio garnered third-team honors.

In The Polls
Loyola is tied for 10th in the USILA coaches poll and is 13th in the Inside Lacrosse rankings to start the season.

Richmond comes into the game ranked 20th in both versions.

Series History
This weekend’s season-opener will mark the first time that the Greyhounds have met Richmond in regular-season play, although the two programs have played several preseason scrimmages against each other.

The coaching staffs, however, are quite familiar with each other as Richmond Head Coach Dan Chemotti was the Greyhounds’ offensive coordinator from 2007-12, and Spiders Assistant Coach Paul Richards is a 2007 graduate of Loyola who played for the Greyhounds from 2004-07 as a midfielder. Richards was the 2007 winner of the John R. Mohler Award as the top senior student-athlete at Loyola.

Watch The Action
The Loyola-Richmond game will stream live on ESPN+.

Win Them And Pick Them Up
Bailey Savio was on his way to a record-breaking season in 2020 when he won 68.7 percent of faceoffs (90 of 131) in six games while picking up 62 ground balls. He had a career day for Loyola on February 22, 2020, against Rutgers, picking up a Patriot League-record 18 ground balls while going 23 of 24 on faceoffs against the Scarlet Knights. He went 11 of 12 in the first half and 12 of 12 in the second at the ‘X.’

His 18 ground balls and 95.8 winning percentage were both second-best in NCAA Division I games last year, and his 18 ground balls broke the 2017 conference record set by Brady Dove of the U.S. Naval Academy.

Since the start of his sophomore season in 2018 – 23 games, Savio has picked up 203 ground balls, an average of 8.82 per game.

Preseason Prognostications
Patriot League coaches and communications personnel picked Loyola as the team to beat in the conference this season, marking the eight-straight year the Greyhounds have earned the preseason recognition (every year since joining the Patriot League in 2013-14). The Greyhounds garnered 13 of a possible 16 first-place votes and were followed by Army West Point, Lehigh, Navy and Boston University in the top-five.

Ryan McNulty was tabbed as the Preseason Player of the Year, and he was join on the Preseason All-Patriot League Team by five of his teammates: short-stick defensive midfielder Matt Higgins, attackers Kevin Lindley and Aidan Olmstead, midfielder Peter Swindell and defender Cam Wyers.

Inside Lacrosse & USILA Recognition
Ryan McNulty was named a Preseason Third-Team All-American by both Inside Lacrosse and the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA), while Bailey Savio was tabbed All-America Honorable Mention by both. Cam Wyers was also named to the coaches’ association’s honorable mention list.

Limiting Shots
Loyola took 108 more shots than its opponents last year, holding four teams to less than 30 shots per game thus far. The Greyhounds have done so by winning averaging 16 faceoff wins to 7.5 per game, and they are plus-1.2 in turnover margin this year.

Shutting Down Scorers
Against Johns Hopkins and Rutgers, last year Loyola defender Kyle LeBlanc has defended two of the game’s formidable scorers and held them both without a point.

First, he limited Johns Hopkins’ Cole Williams (62 points, 33 assists combined in 2018 and 2019) to zero points on six shots. He then helped snap Rutgers’ Adam Charlambides’ 26-game goal-scoring and 34-game point-scoring streaks when the player who had 90 goals and 28 assists in the last two years was shutout.

Cam Wyers took a turn at limiting a team’s leader in goals and points night when he held Towson’s Jon Mazza scoreless on only one shot.

Aidan Is All Around
Aidan Olmstead posted two 40-plus point seasons in 2018 and 2019, and he then led the Greyhounds in points with 22 during the shortened 2020 season. In 36 career games, Olmstead has scored 108 points with 55 goals and 53 assists.

He had three-straight five-point games (Rutgers, Towson, Lafayette) in 2020.

After being hampered by an injury early in 2019, Olmstead posted 18 goals and 13 assists in the Greyhounds’ last nine games, bringing his season totals to 23 and 21.

In 2018, Olmstead finished his freshman season with 19 goals and 21 assists in 17 games.

The Patriot League All-Academic Team member is now not the only member of his family within the Loyola athletic department. His twin sisters, Riley and Logan are sophomores on the fourth-ranked Loyola women’s lacrosse team.

To 100 And Beyond
Kevin Lindley became the 11th player in program history to reach 100 goals in a career when he scored his first goal on February 15, 2020 against Johns Hopkins.

Lindley got to the 100-goal plateau in just his 36th career game, the fastest in Loyola history after Gary Hanley reached the plateau in his 39th career game (1980). Hanley is the school’s all-time leader in goals scored with 151 from 1977-81. Lindley is now sixth all-time at Loyola with 116 goals. He can move into a tie for fourth with four more goals, matching Gewas Schindler’s 120 from 1996-99.

Between The Lines
Ryan McNulty has been key to the Greyhounds’ defense and transition game over the past two seasons, earning his All-America honors (USILA honorable mention) in 2020 and 2021 (Inside Lacrosse Second Team) as a long-stick midfielder. Since 2019, he has been the team’s leader (among non-faceoff players) in 78 ground balls while leading Loyola with 36 caused turnovers.

Over his career, he has amassed 51 caused turnovers and 145 ground balls while scoring eight goals to go with six assists.

McNulty graduated from Loyola in 2020 and entering the 2021 season has two more years of eligibility remaining on the field. He saw only two games as freshman before receiving a medical hardship waiver.

Little Bit Of Everything
Peter Swindell has been a utility knife of sorts for the Greyhounds during his career, playing on offensive midfield, running on the wings of faceoffs and taking shifts as a defensive midfielder.

The senior co-captain opened his 2020 season with three points against defending national champion Virginia, scoring a goal and posting two assists. In just six games, he has set career-highs with nine goals and 16 points.

His previous career-high was 15 points in 2019 when he scored seven times while assisting on eight goals. He also posted a career-best 42 ground balls.

Toomey’s Team
Charley Toomey is in his 16th year as the head coach at Loyola and his 25th as a member of the Greyhounds’ coaching staff. Overall, he is in his 29th year on the Evergreen campus, including his four seasons as a student-athlete from 1986-90.

Against Lafayette on February 29, 2020, Toomey won his 150th career game.

Toomey has directed the Greyhounds to 104 wins, an average of 12.6 per season (not including the shortened 2020 season) since 2012, and has a 150-71 career record. Early in the 2016 season, Toomey became the second coach in program history to reach and cross the 100-win plateau; he stands second on the program’s all-time wins chart behind his college coach, Dave Cottle (181-70, 1983-2001).

Toomey’s .679 winning percentage is fourth amongst active NCAA Division I head coaches with 10 or more seasons coaching at the level.

As a head coach, Toomey has coached 38 USILA All-Americans, 77 all-conference selections, 21 conference positional or players or rookies of the year, four Tewaaraton Award finalists and 18 USILA Scholar All-Americans.

In January 2019, Toomey was named to the coaching staff of the U.S. Men’s National Team as an assistant coach. He will serve with Team USA in preparation for, and competition in, the 2022 World Championships in British Columbia. He was also enshrined in the USLacrosse Chesapeake Chapter Hall of Fame in January 2019 for his accomplishments as a player and a coach.

Lindley Leading
Kevin Lindley was one of the top goal scorers in the nation in 2019, scoring 60 goals in 17 games, and he was third in NCAA Division I with 3.53 goals per game. He tallied four or more in 10 of the Greyhounds’ 17 contests, including eight against Colgate, six at Towson and versus Holy Cross and Georgetown and five versus Virginia and Navy.

Against Lafayette in April 2019, Lindley broke the school single-season record for goals, breaking the mark set in 2012 by Eric Lusby of 54. Lindley’s 56 (at the conclusion of that game) came in 14 games where Lusby’s 54 were in 19.

Lindley finished his freshman season in 2018 with 37 goals. He is now second on the NCAA Division I active career leader list with 2.92 goals per game.

First Three Are Big Ones
Joey Kamish did not score a goal in his first two collegiate lacrosse games, but his breakout against Rutgers in 2020 came at a key time. He scored twice in the first half to help Loyola build a 4-1 lead, and his third was the eventual game-winner, coming with 1:53 remaining in regulation. His first goal was scored while he was being defended by Rutgers’ Brennan Kamish, his older brother.

Kamish followed his performance against the Scarlet Knights with another hat trick versus Towson and then two assists at Lafayette.

Freshmen Contributions
Kamish is not the only freshman who posted solid offensive numbers through in the six 2020 games. Adam Poitras was fourth on the team with 12 points, scoring five goals and assisting on seven, good for second on the team. Kamish is fourth with 11 points on eight goals, three assists.

Record Ground Ball Numbers
Bailey Savio set school records with 141 ground balls and 242 faceoff wins in 2019, marks that are both second all-time in the Patriot League. His 471 faceoffs attempted were both school and Patriot League records while ranking fifth all-time in NCAA Division I history.

Savio was the fifth player to post 100-plus in a year, joining Haas, while Bailey’s older brother, Graham, who had 103 in 2017, and Dan Kallaugher (2007) and Ryan Radonis (2003) who had 101 ground-ball seasons.

In his three seasons – Savio split time as the Greyhounds’ faceoff specialist as a freshman in 2018 – he has 432 wins and 247 ground balls. Graham Savio holds the Loyola record for wins (710) and ground balls (340).

Quartet Of Captains
The Greyhounds elected three players to serve as the 2020 captains: graduate students Matt Higgins, Ryan McNulty, John Railey and Peter Swindell. McNulty is in his third season as a captain, while Higgins and Swindell are in the second.

Teacher of Tewaaratons
Loyola assistant coach Marc Van Arsdale has coached more Tewaaraton Award winners than anyone else. In addition to Pat Spencer in 2019, three of Van Arsdale’s players at the University of Virginia – Chris Rotelli (2003), Matt Ward (2006) and Steele Stanwick (2011) – have earned the award as the sport’s top player.

Get To Ten
Since Charley Toomey became head coach at Loyola in 2006, the Greyhounds have scored 10 or more goals on 138 occasions; Loyola has won 81.2 percent of those games (112-26).

Up Next
Loyola will open its home slate of games on Saturday, February 20, when it hosts the University of Virginia.

[GreyingHound]

Thanks for posting the stats and matchup notes. I had forgotten how dominant Bailey was last season. I am really curious to see how he adapts to the new face off rules.

[kramerica.inc]

Game will be tough this weekend and I think Hounds are a decided Underdog in this one. Crappy weather may impede an already long bus ride. But Okay. Toomey also emphasized what I said in a previous post about the Rope Unit

With all seriousness, watch for Riley Cox to have a good season. And if Toomey lets the team "run and gun" it' gonna be fun. Will be interesting to see how they perform after a severely limited practice schedule.

Toomey was noticeably quiet in that interview. This year will be quirky, depending on who is healthy for teams, when they play. No news about the health of the Richmond team. If the hounds are down to 28 of 54 players like has been rumored, I agree with your assessment. If we are healthy, I like our chances.

[houndace1]

Toomey was interviewed on the Dixie and D-Fly Podcast for the upcoming game against Richmond this weekend.

He sheds a lot of light on what 2020 was like, what 2021 has been like for the team and dealing with COVID.

Discusses some team personnel and who to watch out for.

Also, Team announced 4 captains - all grad students.

McNulty, Railey, Higgins, Swindell.

Rumor has it McNulty can come back for 2022 due to his redshirt year he received in 2017

[kramerica.inc]

A peek into the atmosphere and what's happening on campus:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/col ... story.html

Many of the area programs are employing measures such as avoiding overnight stays at hotels on road trips, taking two buses instead of one to promote physical distancing, and banning post-game meals with family members and friends. But that’s just scratching the surface.

At Towson, players on offense are given 15 minutes to use the locker room next to Johnny Unitas Stadium before they are ushered out so that their teammates on defense can use the same space for the same allotted time. Road trips now include boxed lunches consumed outside in parking lots at shopping centers.

Loyola has yet to use its locker room at Ridley Athletic Complex. Weights and other exercise machines have been moved to an indoor dome on an adjoining field, which is also where a projector has been installed for players and coaches to pore over film.

....

But there are drawbacks. Loyola men’s coach Charley Toomey said the players have missed out on the interaction in the locker room that is critical toward building relationships. Timchal, the Navy coach, said she worries that a general sense of complacency might overtake players and coaches nationwide as temperatures get warmer and vaccinations become more prevalent.

Towson men’s coach Shawn Nadelen is concerned for the players’ psychological states.

“We’re not really allowing them to be the full-fledged college students that the juniors and seniors had known before and that the freshmen probably expected to be coming in,” he said. “That’s challenging, and it’s difficult. But I think the guys got a taste of that in the fall and now realize, ‘Hey, man, we love being a Towson lacrosse player, and this thing could be pulled out from underneath us at any moment if we don’t pay attention to what we have to do.’ So that continues to be a huge challenge.”

...

But if NBA players broke protocol in that league’s bubble in Florida last summer and fall in several much-publicized incidents, can college athletes be expected to resist similar temptations? Ryan McNulty, a redshirt senior long-stick midfielder at Loyola, said he and his teammates have drawn a line in the sand.

“We’ve said that if you want to have that experience right now but want to go out and party, then Loyola lacrosse is not for you,” he said. “It’s a hard thing to say, but it’s just the sacrifice we have to make. It’s more worth it to be on the field playing with the guys than out somewhere partying.”

Rosenzweig, the Loyola attacker, could finish this season as the program’s all-time leader in points and assists as long as COVID-19 doesn’t derail that objective. She acknowledged that the notion of the coronavirus prematurely ending another year is chilling.

“I think that is always in the back of our minds, and when you’re trying to make a decision on something that might be risky, thinking about that feeling that we had last year can come into play,” she said. “But I think the whole team is on-board. There are some things that we can’t control, and we’ll just have to roll with the punches. But we’re doing everything in our ability to stay on the field.”

[Laxfan#1969]

Gameday!! Go Hounds...

This will be a very tough game, but at least we have lacrosse...

WOTS - Kamish is playing as well as Poitras...both were question marks earlier in the week. Kamish may be limited this week and then back full for next week

Looking forward to watching this team...

[Laxfan#1969]

Offense struggling early.

Looks like Kamish is wearing 18 today

Defense has been great

Effort great

[GreyingHound]

Offense struggling early.

Looks like Kamish is wearing 18 today

Defense has been great

Effort great

The Hounds look good. It's going to be a fun season!

BTW, I know I am too critical, but what about the announcer not realizing there was no faceoff to start the 2nd quarter, and that Richmond's 2nd goal was man-up. Come on, man...

[laxbro11]

Offense struggling early.

Looks like Kamish is wearing 18 today

Defense has been great

Effort great

D playing well. McNulty in mid Season form.
Salvia looking good. No worries there.
Offense is struggling

[TheBigIguana]

I was hoping we had left being a terrible shooting team in 2020. Defense looks great but the offense has to be better or it'll be tough.

[laxbro11]

Turnovers.

[Matnum PI]

A little painful to watch their O...

[laxbro11]

A little painful to watch their O...

Lindley needs to be more active. Olmstead needs to be the feeder. Olmstead trying to do too much.

Seay looks good. The next 5 middies is questionable

Close D. Is solid will only get better Schafer solid.

The hounds are scrappy.

[laxbro11]

Get lindley the ball. It will be game over.

[GreyingHound]

3rd quarter was very painful to watch. EMO is 0-3 and frankly, boring. Richmond's defense is excellent, however.

That said, Lindley just tied it with 1:06 left. We could win this...

[Matnum PI]

Get lindley the ball. It will be game over.

Sure enough...

[jhu08]

Congrats to my Greyhound friends. I know that this was not the prettiest game ever and many of you will not be happy overall with what you saw on the field today today.

However, Richmond looks like a pretty darn good team to me. An ugly win over Richmond might be worth something come May. And Loyola will only get better from here.

[Dr. Tact]

Get lindley the ball. It will be game over.

Yep.

[GreyingHound]

3rd quarter was very painful to watch. EMO is 0-3 and frankly, boring. Richmond's defense is excellent, however.

That said, Lindley just tied it with 1:06 left. We could win this...

Good thing I'm not superstitious. :-)

Great comeback!

[TheBigIguana]

Same story as what I remember of last season. Offense struggles to get openings and misses a lot of reasonable shots but the defense is genuinely great and keeps them in games. They'll need the goals at some point though.