Well, hopefully there’s a bunch of dudes who are going to suddenly step up into gigantic roles that they’ve never held before.
We continue to get closer and closer to the start of the Jake Richard Era of Marquette men’s lacrosse. We’re just one week away from the first official game of the year, and in fact, this is publishing on the same that Marquette is tangling with Navy and Virginia in a pair of scrimmages out at the Naval Academy in Maryland. As such, I had to write this part of the season preview with very little known concept of exactly how the returning guys from the 2024 roster are fitting into the 2025 version of the Golden Eagles. All I had to go on is the part that they have played in the past for Marquette.
I can tell you this much for sure, though: There are six men returning from the 2024 team that played in all 14 games. That is probably not a great sign for Jake Richard’s first season in charge.
Let’s get after it then……
ATTACK
We have to start this section with Bobby O’Grady. He is Marquette’s all-time leader in goals with 114, jumping past Ryan McNamara’s career record of 102 after putting up 26 a year ago. O’Grady is just the second man to ever score 100 goals in MU history, and he starts the year just 19 points behind McNamara’s career record in that department as well. At a career clip of 3.09 points per game, it seems very clear that O’Grady is going to cruise past McNamara’s points record at some point this season. If his points rate continues, it’ll be in game #7, which would be the March 15th visit to Utah. O’Grady had a down year in 2024, tallying just 26 goals and 34 points after passing the 40 barrier on goals alone in each of his first two years. Marquette has to find a way to be better than #59 in offensive efficiency like they were last year, and that starts by unlocking whatever chains were on O’Grady last season.
I don’t know where those keys are at the moment, at least amongst the other returning attackers. Carsen Brandt had a nice freshman year, putting up 16 goals and 14 assists to finish third on the team in points, second amongst returning players behind only O’Grady. The assists were second best on the team, and with Jake Stegman’s eligibility running out, Brandt is MU’s best returning passer. But was he good because he was the secondary guy or can Brandt make a leap in terms of distribution this season?
That answer might not be up to Brandt, because he’s the only other returning starting attacker. Andrew Bowman played in all 14 games last season (uh oh, we’ve already tabbed three of the six every game guys), but he put up just five goals and a helper. Nolan Rappis might be the answer with 16 points in 19 career games for the Golden Eagles. The problem is that he’s spread those 19 games across three seasons. Rappis played in a career high 11 contests last season and had a career high of seven points. If Marquette can keep Rappis healthy and on the field, then maybe he can get into a rhythm with the other guys and that helps boost everyone up.
Jacob Nottoli had eight shots in eight appearances last season as the only other returning attacker with playing time in 2024. Conor McCabe didn’t play last year after appearing in four games over the previous three years, with all four games coming in 2023. JP Henry didn’t get on the field as a freshman last season.
And that’s it for guys with the A next to their name coming back from last year.
MIDFIELD
Thankfully, no lacrosse team is completely dependent on their attackers to put points on the board. Will Foster had 16 goals and seven assists last season to finish fifth on the team in points after starting 10 times and playing in all 14 contests. (That’s 4.) That was the first year that his production truly turned towards goal scoring instead of passing, but Foster’s still tied with Devon Cowan for the fifth most assists in program history. We’ll have to wait and see what his role is exactly on the 2025 team, but maybe there’s a way he can finish up his collegiate career strong and get to two points per game.
Unfortunately, Foster’s the only returning midfielder with notable scoring experience. Nolan Garcia put up four goals in 10 games last season to get him to eight in his 27 game career. Jake Bair had seven goals and an assist in 10 appearances and four starts as a junior in 2024. He also had six of those by the end of February, and three of those six came in a 20-12 loss to Michigan…. and his first pulled MU within six late in the first half. Hayden Miller didn’t play at all last year, but he had 12 points in 20 games spread across the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Maybe one of these guys is poised for a boom season? In theory, someone around here has to be, right?
Of course, not every midfielder contributes by scoring. Peter Detwiler was definitley one of those guys last year, appearing in all 14 games (that’s 5) and averaging a ground ball per game. Detwiler was a scrapper out of the gate as a freshman in 2023 as well, so there’s definitely a spot for a guy with a nose for the ball somewhere on this team. Jack Schoenwetter got into 12 games as a freshman last season, which is good news even if he only added five ground balls and four caused turnovers to the stat sheet. You need short stick defensive midfielders — head coach Jake Richard is a program legend at that exact thing, remember — so those guys can definitely contribute.
Tommy Casey (10 games) and Beau Westphal (9 games) played more often than not last year. I can’t tell you what they chipped in as far as stats go, or rather, I can’t point at something to tell you how they contributed to Marquette a year ago. But playing is playing, especially for Westphal, who was a freshman in 2024.
There’s guys here, just not with anything that resembles notable or major contributions to last year’s team during live action. Charlie Reynolds appeared in three games. Andrew Kohlbrenner, Zach Hulme, and Kaiden Kohls all popped up in two contests. Jadyn Castillo didn’t play in 2024 after making six appearances in 2023. Ethan Salvia was a freshman a year ago and didn’t get into a game. GOOD NEWS: Lots of depth guys! MEDIUM NEWS: No idea who can or can not make an impact on Marquette doing better than their 4-10 record a year ago, seeing as the coaching staff didn’t get them a chance to get in the field, for better or worse.
Do you kind of understand why I am going to struggle with the idea of promoting Jake Richard here, at least until we see results on the field?
DEFENSE
Well, if you got a little bit of an eye twitch about how Marquette going to figure out how to score goals in 2025, I’m not about to help you out here by telling you about how strong the defense is. The fact of the matter is that arguably the best defenseman in program history is now wearing a ballcap and holding a clipboard over on the sideline, as Jake Richard added Mason Woodward to the coaching staff after his eligibility wrapped up after last season. That leave Mike Piraino as the clear runaway top returning defender. He played in all 14 games last year (and that’s our sixth and final guy) but started just four times. That might be more about Piraino being more of a long stick midfielder and not being on the field for the opening draw than anything else, so I’m going to focus on how he added nine ground balls and eight caused turnovers, which is pretty good.
Ryan Kilcoyne is the only other notable returning defenseman, and he started four times in 10 games last year. That’s a breakthrough season for him after 11 total games in his first two seasons, so hopefully he’s up to starting every game this year. If he’s not, then MU might be using some guys listed as long stick midfielders as defenders, and we’ll get to that in a second.
Calvin Hicks appeared twice last season, same as he did as a freshman in 2023. We haven’t seen PJ McColgan since 2023, where he played in just three games. Jackson Nichols was a freshman last year and couldn’t break through onto the field.
LONG STICK MIDFIELDERS
I suspect we’re going to see a lot of David Lamarca, Bradley Johnson, and Brendan Boyle this year. Honestly, we should have seen more of Lamarca seeing as he’s already #9 all time in ground balls, and sixth amongst non-faceoff specialists. He’ll get to 100 at some point this season, as he starts the year with 97. Lamarca probably would have gotten to it last year, but he was limited to just 10 appearances and six starts. Johnson and Boyle both appeared in 13 games last season, so we were so close to getting a total of eight guys appearing in all 14. Johnson had nine ground balls and six caused turnovers as a freshman last year, while Boyle had seven GBs and three CTOs in his second season of action and third with the program in 2024. These guys are going to play for Marquette this year. Whether they’re going to be LSMs coming on and off the field or defenders staying out there when the ball’s on the offensive side of the field, that’s still up in the air. You have to put your best guys out there, but you also have to make your best use of what you have on hand as well.
There’s ways for Kayden Rogers and Colin Sim to get playing time this season. Rogers has four total appearances for Marquette since joining the team for the 2022 campaign, including two last year, while Sim popped up twice in early February as a freshman last year, and then just once more the rest of the season. Depending on how everything else around them shakes out in terms of playing time and playing position, both Rogers and Sim might get their number called a little bit more in 2025.
FACEOFF
Remember when you weren’t super excited about the level of potential offensive fireworks earlier? So, a key component to generating said fireworks is having the ball in the first place, and MU returns just one FO specialist with playing time from last year. The good news is that Adam Slager won over 56% of his draws as a redshirt freshman in 2024. Now, he only took 76 draws total spread across eight games, and he only took 14 draws after the end of February. That’s not ideal, but you have to remember that Luke Williams was winning 59% of his draws. No shade to Slager’s 56%, but you take the small advantage every single time, y’know?
Quinn Warwick spent a lot of time as a freshman last year watching those two guys stack up wins, not to mention practicing draws against them. That didn’t earn him any playing time, but maybe he picked up a trick or two along the way.
GOALIE
Lucas Lawas is your preseason leader in terms of returning goalie minutes….. because he played 38 minutes spread across three games last year. He also got beat out in 2024 by transfer Caleb Creasor after Lawas was the guy in net late in 2023 when Marquette lost three straight overtime games against ranked opponents and missed the Big East tournament as a result. Lawas comes into 2025 with a career save percentage of .466 and a goals-against average of 14.15. That might not sound like much, but he’s #7 all time in MU history in the former and #8 amongst guys with at least 200 minutes played in the latter.
Jack Kask was around last year as a freshman, but clearly stacked up behind Creasor and Lawas, not to mention Jamie Grant, who ended up with 26 minutes played in four games. Nothing wrong with being the #4 guy as a freshman, so we’ll see where things go for him this year.
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