Quick Hits About The 'Hounds

• Loyola University Maryland men's lacrosse returns to Ridley Athletic Complex for its next two games, starting with a Friday, March 29, contest against Lehigh University at 7 p.m.
• According to the first release of NCAA metrics this week, Loyola has played the third-toughest schedule in the nation this year.
• Matthew Minicus has 14 points in the Greyhounds' last two games with seven goals and seven assists.
• Luke Staudt has averaged 13.6 saves per game with a .530 saves percentage through the season's first nine games.
• Adam Poitras has five-straight games with three or more points and a total of seven in that regard this season. He has scored at least one goal in eight of nine games and has six multi-goal games and four hat tricks or better. 
• With the Greyhounds' next win, Charley Toomey will tie the program record for head coaching wins, matching the 181 by Dave Cottle from 1983-2001.
• The Greyhounds are in their 15th season of competition at Ridley Athletic Complex, which opened in 2010. The Greyhounds are 73-31 (.702) all-time at the stadium.

Looking Back

• Matthew Minicus had a career-high nine points on four goals and five assists Saturday, leading four Loyola players who had three or more goals in an 18-10 Patriot League victory over host Lafayette.
• Matt Heuston, Evan James and Adam Poitras joined Minicus with hat tricks in the game, each scoring three. Joey Kamish had two goals, Davis Lindsey added one, and Trent Turner and Matt Dixon each had the first goals of their career.
• Loyola took a 4-1 lead less than seven minutes into the game behind two goals from Minicus and additional tallies by Dixon and Heuston, but Lafayette had a 4-0 run itself to go up 7-6 on a John Mathes goal with 8:22 to go in the first half.
• Lafayette had an excellent chance to increase its lead less than a minute after Mathes' goal, going two men up for almost 90 seconds, but Loyola killed a total of 150 seconds in penalties to remain down by just one.
• Kamish scored his first of the game with a Minicus assist 2:45 later, jumpstarting a stretch in which the Greyhounds would score 12 of the game's final 15 goals.
• Eric Pacheco won a season-high 17 faceoffs, and Luke Staudt had 10 saves.

Watch The Game

• Friday's game will stream live on ESPN+. 

Series History

• Loyola and Lehigh will play for the 19th time in series history when the teams take the field on Friday night. 
• The Greyhounds have won 16 of 18 games in the series, but Lehigh scored a 15-9 win in last season's regular-season finale that was played on the Mountain Hawks' home field.
• The series first started in 1942 with games played in 1947 and 1948, as well. The programs met four times between 1984 and 1998 and have then faced off 10 times since the Greyhounds joined the Patriot League for the 2021 season. 

Can't Say It's Not Balanced

• Loyola's top three scorers – Evan James, Matthew MInicus and Adam Poitras – are tied atop the team's statistics with 27 points each.
• James and Poitras have matching stat lines with 19 goals and eight assists, while Minicus comes into the 10th game of the year with 18 goals and nine assists.
• The trio has combined for 11 hat tricks (James and Poitras, 4; Minicus, 3) and 17 multi-goal games (James and Poitras, 6; Minicus, 5).

Not Playing Like A Minnow 

• Matthew Minicus' nickname may be 'Minnow,' but he has played big for the Greyhounds of late. The sophomore from Darien, Connecticut, has 14 points in Loyola's last two games, buoyed by a career-high nine on March 23 at Lafayette when he scored four goals and assisted on five. He had three goals and two assists a week earlier against Boston University. Minicus earned Patriot League Offensive Player of the Week and USILA Team of the Week honors following the game against the Leopards.
• Minicus has played in 24 games for the Greyhounds over the last year-plus and already has 76 points with 51 goals and 25 assists. This season, he has 18 goals and nine assists for 27 points after posting 33 goals, 16 assists and 49 points as a freshman in 2023 when he tied for the team-lead in points and topped all Patriot League freshmen in both categories.
• He comes from a strong line of Loyola attackers out of Darien High School where the Blue Wave have been one of the nation's historically best programs.
• Cooper MacDonnell scored 22 or more goals his last three years at Loyola and finished his 2007-10 with 77 goals and 96 points. He led the team in goals scored in 2008 and 2009 with 22 and 30, respectively.
• Kevin Lindley set the Loyola and Patriot League all-time goal scored records between 2018 and 2002 as a starting attacker for the Greyhounds. Lindley scored 196 goals, a total that entered the 2024 season ranked 10th in NCAA Division I history.

Sparking The Offense

• Evan James and Adam Poitras made the shift to starting on attack for the Greyhounds after the regular-season game at Boston University on April 15, 2023, with James moving to one spot down low for the April 18 game against Georgetown with Poitras making the move April 22 versus Colgate.
• James started the trend with two goals against the Hoyas. Poitras and he both put up four-goal games four days later against the Raiders with Poitras' quartet coming with three assists. Poitras had another four-goal game to close the regular-season at Lehigh. James then set a Patriot League Championships single-game record with six goals in the quarterfinal at Navy. Both had four-goal outings at Boston University in the Patriot League Semifinals; James posted three assists in that game, and Poitras had one.
• This year, both have started primarily on attack, and  since April 22 of last year, they have scored 68 goals (34 each).

Back As The Backstop

• Luke Staudt started the 2023 season as hot as a goalkeeper could be, posting double-digit save performances, including one with 19 stops in the season-opening win against then-No. 1 Maryland. 
• After five games (Maryland-Lafayette), he had 70 saves against 44 goals allowed for a .614 save percentage. Over the next seven games he played (Duke-Colgate), his save percentage dipped to .417.
• Staudt did not play in the regular-season finale at Lehigh, but he came back in stellar form in the Patriot League Quarterfinals at Navy, making 18 saves on 25 shots on goal (.720) to finish one off his then-career-high. He came back in the semifinal with 20 saves on 31 shots on goal (.645) against Army West Point. 
• Overall last year, he led the Patriot League and was No. 6 in the nation in saves percentage (.554).
• This year, he opened with 11 saves in a win over Georgetown and was named Patriot League Goalkeeper of the Week, and he followed that performance with a 16-save outing at Maryland, a 17-save game at Johns Hopkins and 18 versus Towson. He set a new season-high on March 16 against Boston University, stopping 19 shots. He is ninth in NCAA Division I in saves per game heading into the Lehigh game.

Scoring Where He's Needed

• Adam Poitras had his freshman season, during which he was a starter on the Greyhounds' first midfield, cut short by the COVID pandemic after he'd scored five goals and dished out seven assists through six games.
• He played in all 16 games as a sophomore in 2021, but his production was hampered as he came back from offseason surgery. As he became healthier throughout the year, his point production increased and he had eight goals and eight assists in the last seven games of the season. Poitras finished second on the team in 2022 with 29 goals, and he was third with 38 points.
• After that junior season of 2022, Poitras played for the Whitby Warriors of the Ontario Junior Lacrosse League and led the Warriors to both the Mann (OJLL 'A') and Minto Cup (National) titles. He was named Most Valuable Player of both tournaments, and in the Minto Cup, he tied for tournament-high honors with 14 goals and added 15 assists. Poitras also earned a silver medal while playing for the Canadian team at the 2022 U-21 Men's World Championships, along with Loyola teammate Josh Fairey.
• Poitras moved to start on attack late in the 2023 season, and he finished the year leading the team in points (49) and goals (34); he has played 64 games during his career and has 98 goals and 50 assists for 148 points. His 98 goals are tied for 13th in school history with Jim Blanding (1989-92), and he is nearing the top-15 all-time in points.
• He put up a career-high seven points against Colgate last season, tying his career-high marks in goals (4) and assists (3), and he matched the four-goal mark less than a week later at Lehigh and did so again at Boston University in the semifinals.
• In the 2024 opener against Georgetown, he was again an attack starter, scoring four goals and assisting on one. He has six multi-goal games this year and four hat tricks.
• The athletic gene pool runs strong in his family. His younger brother, Matthew, was a second-round draft pick of the Boston Bruins in 2022 and had five goals and 10 assists this year for the NHL team through 33 appearances before a shoulder injury ended his season.

Steady Production

• Evan James has been one of the Greyhounds' best point producers since the start of the 2021 season, scoring at least once in 53 of the 62 games he's played. In 2022, he earned All-Patriot League Second Team honors for the second season in a row, scoring 26 goals and assisting on 11 while starting on the Greyhounds' first midfield. In 2021, he played primarily on attack and had 32 goals and 12 assists.
• James had three four-goal games in 2022 – at Navy and at Colgate. He scored two or more goals in eight of Loyola's 16 games last year.
• Last year, he had five hat tricks and seven games with two or more goals; he now has 18 career hat tricks and 34 games with two or more goals. 
• He started the last six games on attack in 2023 and had 18 goals, including four on five shots against Colgate and a Patriot League Championships record six at Navy. He then had a four-goal, three-assist game at Boston University in the semifinal.
• Over 63 career games played, James is the Greyhounds' active leader in goals (111) and points scored (152). On February 24 against Rutgers, he became the 13th player in school history to score 100 goals in a career. He is currently tied for 10th in career goals, and he is tied for 15th in points.

Lindsey Heating Up

• Davis Lindsey posted back-to-back games of four or points for the Greyhounds, scoring four goals and assisting on another on February 27 against Towson before nearly that output with one and three at Colgate on March 2. He followed that with three assists on March 9 versus Duke.
• The five-point game tied his career-high set that he's reached three previous times. He had five points in 2022 at Georgetown (2 goals, 3 assists), versus Bucknell in the Patriot League Quarterfinals (2, 3) and last year against Lafayette (3, 2). 
• Lindsey's game last year against Lafayette was sandwiched between Towson (1, 3) and Duke (3, 1) in which he had four points each.
• Lindsey has even goals and 10 assists for 17 points this season, 14 points coming in the last five outings.

First Timers

• Matt Dixon and Trent Turner got their first extended playing time as members of the Greyhounds' second midfield unit at Lafayette, and both cashed in with their first collegiate goals.
• Turner made his Loyola debut in the game after missing time with an injury, and he had an assist on his first shirt with a pass to setup Dixon's goal. Turner then scored with nine-tenths of a second left in the first half against the Leopards.

Don't Slow Your Mustang Down

• Mustang Sally enters the 2024 season as a Preseason All-Patriot League player at short-stick defensive midfield after posting excellent numbers both on the defensive and offensive sides of the ball.
• He caused 20 turnovers, leading all short sticks in NCAA Division I, and had six goals and four assists for 10 points.
• In two-plus seasons as a short-stick for the Greyhounds, Sally has posted 40 caused turnovers and 54 ground balls to go with seven goals and seven assists. He had a goal and an assist in the first half of the season opener against Georgetown.

Bean Off The Ground

• Alex Bean was second among Loyola's non-faceoff players last year with 40 ground balls in his first year as a starting close defender, but he had been credited with just one in the Greyhounds' first four games this season.
• Bean got his average back up on February 27 against Towson, picking up a career-high six against the Tigers. 

Game-Winning Goal By A Pole

• Remi Reynolds knocked down a shot from outside of 15 yards on Tuesday night against Towson, putting a dramatic end to an 11-10 overtime win for the Greyhounds. It was Reynolds' second career goal, the first coming in 2022 when he was a freshman at Rutgers. It was the last game-winning goal by a Loyola long pole since April 6, 2013, when Scott Ratliff recorded the eventual winner in a 13-7 win over Fairfield. Ratliff had four goals in that game, a collegiate record for a pole.

Toomey's Team

• Charley Toomey is in his 19th year as the head coach at Loyola and his 27th as a member of the Greyhounds' coaching staff. Overall, he is in his 31st year on the Evergreen campus, including his four seasons as a student-athlete from 1986-90.
• Toomey has a 180-99 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).
• As a head coach, Toomey has coached 52 USILA All-Americans, 104 all-conference selections, 21 conference positional or players or rookies of the year, a Tewaaraton Award winner and five finalists and 28 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 was an assistant for the gold-medal winning team at the 2023 World Championships in San Diego.

Get To Ten

• Since Charley Toomey became head coach at Loyola in 2006, the Greyhounds have scored 10 or more goals on 176 occasions; Loyola has won 79.4 percent of those games (140-36).

Up Next

• Loyola continues its homestand on Saturday, April 6, with a 1 p.m. game against Bucknell University.