Quick Hits About The 'Hounds
- Loyola University Maryland opens its eighth season of competition in the Patriot League on Saturday, March 6, when it heads to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to face Lehigh University.
- The game will stream live on ESPN+ and internationally on Sidearm.
- Dating back to March 23, 2016, Loyola is averaging 12.63 goals over its last 80 games. It has scored less than 10 only 11 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.
Last Time Out
- Evan James and Aidan Olmstead each had career-high days Saturday, scoring five goals apiece as Loyola beat Utah, 20-8, at Ridley Athletic Complex.
- Olmstead added three assists to set a career-best with eight points, while James had one and also had a career-high six points.
- The duo was two of four Greyhounds who had hat tricks in the game as Kevin Lindley and Riley Seay each tallied three. Peter Swindell had a multi-point game, too, as he posted a goal and two assists.
- Defensively, Loyola limited the Utes to just 30 shots and no player scored more than one goal in the game. The Greyhounds had a 30-23 ground ball advantage with Matt Hughes' five leading the way. Cam Wyers caused three turnovers and had two ground balls, and Ryan McNulty posted an assist and had four ground balls and a caused turnover.
- Loyola jumped out to a 4-0 lead less than 11 minutes into the game as James scored two of the first three, wrapped around a Seth Higgins tally. Seay then added a goal after a shot fake and bouncer, pushing the advantage to four with 4:02 on the clock.
In The Polls
- Loyola is 11th in the USILA coaches poll and 10th in the Inside Lacrosse rankings entering Saturday's game.
- Lehigh comes in ranked 13th in both versions.
Series History
- Loyola and Lehigh will meet for the 16th time on the lacrosse field when the teams take the field Saturday
- The Greyhounds have won all 15 previous meetings, including six Patriot League regular-season games and the 2014 and 2018 Patriot League Championship Games.
- Loyola and Lehigh last met in the 2019 regular-season when the Greyhounds jumped out to a 6-0 lead by the end of the first quarter that they would extent to 9-0 in the second.
- Pat Spencer finished the game with five goals and six assists for 11 total points, and Jacob Stover made 15 saves in goal for the Greyhounds.
Fan Policy
- Saturday's game at Lehigh will be closed to all spectators due to COVID-19 restrictions and safety protocols.
Watch The Action
- The Loyola-Lehigh game will stream live on ESPN+.
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 41 career games, Olmstead has scored 122 points with 62 goals and 60 assists.
- 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.
- He had a goal and two assists in each of Loyola's first two 2021 games, and he then went off for five goals and three assists on February 27 against Utah.
- The native of Painted Post, New York, now has 20 games with two or more assists, 18 with multiple goals and seven career hat tricks. Among those games, he has 23 outings with three or more points, 10 of those coming against Patriot League opponents.
- Olmstead is tied for 13th all-time at Loyola in assists, 10 away from cracking the top-10.
- 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 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. Against Virginia, Lindley moved into fifth all-time at Loyola, passing Gewas Schindler (1996-99). With 123 career goals, Lindley is five shy of tying Mike Sawyer (2009, 11-13) for fourth on the career list.
- Lindley finished his freshman season in 2018 with 37 goals, had a school-record 60 as a sophomore in 2019 and 19 in the truncated 2020 campaign. With 10 in three games to start 2021, Lindley has 126 goals in his career, and third amongst active players who have played more than 15 games at NCAA Division I.
- His 126 career goals rank him fifth all-time at Loyola, two shy of tying Mike Sawyer (2009, 2011-13) for fourth.
New Position, No Problem
- Evan James shifted to attack to make the first start there of his collegiate career on February 20 against Virginia, and the sophomore finished with three goals and an assist. The Ohio native needed just six shots to snap off his hat trick that was the first of his collegiate career.
- He followed that performance with a five-goal, six-point game against Utah, a contest in which he scored on all but one of his shots.
- Against Richmond, James made his first start, this coming in the midfield where he played in all six games during 2020, posting three goals and five ground balls.
- As a freshman during the abbreviated 2020 season, James played in all six games and finished with three goals. He did not score in the first three games before tallying a pair of extra-man tallies on February 26 against Towson. He followed with another man-up goal versus Duke.
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 – 25 games, Savio has picked up 213 ground balls, an average of 8.52 per game.
- Savio's 456 career faceoff wins are fourth all-time at Loyola behind his brother Graham (709), John Schiavone (459) and Ryan Radonis (457). He is also fourth in school history in ground balls (257) back of his brother (340), Jamie Hanford (286) and Peter Haas (276).
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.
- 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.
Freshman Honors
- Seth Higgins has earned Patriot League Rookie of the Week honors in each of the Greyhounds first two games this season as a part of Loyola's second midfield unit. He had an assist in the season-opener at Richmond, and he then tallied his first collegiate goal to go with an assist versus Virginia.
Between The Lines
- Ryan McNulty has been key to the Greyhounds' defense and transition game since joining the program in 2017, 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 83 ground balls while leading Loyola with 38 caused turnovers.
- Over his career, he has amassed 54 caused turnovers and 157 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.
- Swindell has played in 56 career games and has 28 goals, 20 assists and 63 ground balls.
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.
- In the 2021 season-opener, LeBlanc marked Richmond's Richie Connell (19g, 3a in 2020), and Wyers guarded Ryan Lanchbury (14g, 16a), holding the pair to one goal (Connell) and two assists (Lanchbury). Connell's goal was on extra-man, as was one of Lanchbury's assists.
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 152-72 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.
Quartet Of Captains
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 140 occasions; Loyola has won 80.7 percent of those games (113-27).
Up Next
- Loyola returns to Ridley Athletic Complex for two-straight home Patriot League games, first facing Lafayette College on March 13 before taking on Bucknell University.
