Palsgrove’s Points: Men’s Lacrosse
Club sports are pretty weird, and club lacrosse just got even more so. The Flames Men’s Lacrosse team is a member of the MCLA, which if you remember our discussion about the ACHA and club hockey from my column a few weeks ago, is the lax version of the ACHA. There was a new ruling that may throw a wrench into the upcoming Flames Lacrosse season, and I’ll do my best to explain it to you below. I’ll also give you all a few nuggets of intrigue that I took away from the Flames’ first outing of the school year, their 11-10 scrimmage victory over the Virginia Tech Hokies.
Explaining the MCLA’s ruling
COVID-19 really messed up collegiate sports eligibility across the board, and it’s still messing with the MCLA. Recently, the MCLA, at the request of some of its members, revisited its policy on eligibility and arrived at a new ruling. To summarize an honestly confounding document, the MCLA, in an effort to “ensure no player exceeds the 4 years of college lacrosse play,” is saying that if a current MCLA and former NCAA player “played more than 50% of their scheduled games, rostered players of that team used their eligibility for that playing season.”
The main reason for the change, according to the MCLA, is due to the MCLA believing “that the NCAA had not recognized the Spring 2021 season as a year of eligibility used, when in fact it did for many lacrosse players.”
“I mean, we won’t know until we know,” Flames Head Coach Kyle McQuillan told me after the team’s scrimmage Saturday. “I think we’ve got a couple situations that we’re going to have to look at and make some appeals. … But it makes me sick to think that there’s a chance that I have to tell any of these guys that we brought in here and tell them that … because of a change in a decision by MCLA leadership, that I have to then go back to players and say, like, ‘Hey, we lied to you.’”
The biggest question mark for the Flames is senior defenseman Conor Guiltinan, the reigning MCLA Defensive Player of the Year and a first-team All-America and All-Conference selection who spent three seasons with High Point University, an NCAA D1 school.
Another question mark on the Flames’ roster is their new FOGO (face-off-get-off, a subsection of midfielder that specializes in faceoffs), graduate Caleb Hammett, who was a University of Massachusetts Minuteman from 2021-2024 but is eligible after being redshirted due to injury in the 2021 season.
The newcomers
Speaking of Hammett, let’s take a look at some of the newcomers for this Flames unit. Hammett, aka “The Drip King,” is the headliner of the bunch and already showed his talent at the faceoff dot Saturday, winning 20 of his 23 faceoffs.
The other standouts for the Flames were freshman midfielders Josiah Hoopman and William Morris, who got time in place of the injured Braden Landry, the Flames senior attacker. Morris, a 6-foot-3-inch beast of a human being, stands out immediately on the field, being one of the biggest and tallest players the Flames have seen in recent years. Hoopman didn’t stand out in the same way as Morris, but he certainly proved himself in his first outing, scoring his first goal for the Flames on a stand-down and impressing the coaching staff.
Run it back
The Flames returned more of their players than I was expecting them to, with their single truly notable loss coming in the crease after goalkeeper Eric Warnstrom graduated. The Flames were able to bring back their big names on the offensive side, however, including graduate middie Keaton Mohs, senior middie Will Geary and junior attacker Luke Branham.
On the defensive side of the field, the Flames resumed their trend of continuity and were able to return Guiltinan (hopefully), senior Bryn Jungles, graduate Matthew Walker and senior Benjamin Chun. Last season was one of the best seasons in the program’s history, and the Flames are looking to recreate that magic come spring ball.
Palsgrove is the sports editor for the Liberty Champion. Follow him on X.