B1G Lacrosse 2019 // Preseason Rankings

First, a correction. I claimed last week that Maryland would interestingly not be playing any scrimmages before their official start to the season. I received an email that pointed out that Maryland had a scrimmage vs Marquette on Saturday 1/19 and had a scrimmage at Georgetown this past Saturday, 1/26 at noon. My confusion came from the posted Maryland schedule on the official website which unlike all the other programs, does NOT list their scrimmages and exhibitions which is odd.

Anyway, new preseason rankings were released on Monday January 28th! You all should be excited because 5/6 B1G teams are ranked in the USILA Coaches Poll and all 6 B1G teams are ranked the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll. The Big Ten released their preseason coaches rankings as well.

USILA Division I Men’s Coaches Poll

USILA Division I Men’s Coaches Poll

Inside Lacrosse Media Poll

Inside Lacrosse

Big Ten Preseason Coaches Poll

1. Johns Hopkins

2. Maryland

3. Penn State

4. Rutgers

5. Ohio State

6. Michigan

So Maryland is the highest ranking team of our B1G Little Lacrosse League at #3 for both main polls, but then interestingly the Big Ten has higher hopes for Johns Hopkins. In the full polls, Johns Hopkins comes in after Maryland at #7, Penn State at #9, Rutgers at #12, Ohio State at #15 for USILA and #16 for Inside Lacrosse, and then Michigan is ranked #20 for the Inside Lacrosse poll over Marquette.

As I pointed out in my initial preview, the Big Ten is going to be competitive within itself and throughout the league this year. Hopefully, that doesn’t mess up anyone’s tournament hopes which is an expectation for the top five B1G teams.

Season Start

Several Big Ten teams officially begin their seasons this Saturday, February 2nd:

• Maryland vs Bucknell, at 1:00 pm.
• Ohio State vs Cleveland State, at 12:00 pm.
• Penn State vs Villanova, at 12:00 pm.
• Rutgers vs Lafayette, at 1:00 pm

Johns Hopkins and Michigan both open their seasons away on the 9th at Towson and Cleveland State respectively.

I was going to recap the scrimmages of this past weekend, but because they’re not real games with half of them closed to the public, it honestly wasn’t worth the digging.

The Big Ten is good at Lacrosse. That’s all that needs to be known.

Players to Keep an Eye on

Bigten.org also released their 2019 Big Ten Men’s Lacrosse Players to Watch

18 players made the list, 3 from each team.

• Patrick Foley, Sr., D, Johns Hopkins^
• Kyle Marr, Sr., A, Johns Hopkins
• Cole Williams, Jr., A, Johns Hopkins^
• Jared Bernhardt, Jr., A, Maryland*
• Curtis Corley, Sr., D, Maryland^
• Roman Puglise, So., M, Maryland
• Nick DeCaprio, Sr., D, Michigan
• Kevin Mack, So., A, Michigan
• JM Priddy, Jr., D, Michigan
• Jack Jasinski, Sr., M, Ohio State
• Tre LeClaire, Jr., A/M, Ohio State^
• Ryan Terefenko, Jr., M, Ohio State*
• Grant Ament, Jr., A, Penn State
• Gerard Arceri, Jr., M, Penn State*
• Chris Sabia, Sr., D, Penn State^
• Max Edelmann, Sr., G, Rutgers
• Kieran Mullins, Jr., A, Rutgers
• Kyle Pless, Sr., LSM, Rutgers

* indicates 2018 First Team All-Big Ten honoree

^ indicates 2018 Second Team All-Big Ten honoree

This week at bigten.org it’s also B1G Lacrosse week so check them out!

“Depending on the rigor of my PhD life, the articles mayyy vary in effort, but hey I’ll post something with at least 250 words every week...” —ZuzuRU on January 15th, 2019 with regards to her LAX articles.

This article has 574 words.