Game Information
Opponent	UMBC Retrievers
Date	Friday, February 20, 2026
Time	6:00 p.m.
Location	Catonsville, Md. | UMBC Stadium
Getting There	Directions
Watch	ESPN+
Online Media	Live Stats
Tickets	Purchase
Game Notes	Loyola

Quick Hits

• Loyola University Maryland men's lacrosse gets back on the field Friday, February 20, for its next game against a local foe.
• UMBC will host the Greyhounds in a 6 p.m. game at UMBC Stadium.
• Loyola will play its first four games on the road this year with the opening three coming in the 410 area code.
• Mason Cook has led the Greyhounds in scoring in both of their first two games, scoring three times against both Maryland and Johns Hopkins. The hat tricks are the third and fourth of his career with the previous two coming in the last four games of his freshman at Loyola.
• Loyola returns 97.69 percent of its goals scored, 96.55 percent of its assists, 88.89 of its faceoffs won and all of its goalie saves from last year.
• Charley Toomey is in his 21st season as head coach of the Greyhounds. It is also his 30th year as a member of the Loyola staff and 34th with the program, including four as a student-athlete.
• The Greyhounds are in their 17th season of competition at Ridley Athletic Complex, which opened in 2010. The Greyhounds are 76-35 (.684) all-time at the stadium.

Looking Back

• Johns Hopkins scored the game's first five goals Saturday, and the 15th-ranked Blue Jays did not trail in a 13-7 win over visiting Loyola at Homewood Field.
• The Blue Jays scored five in a row over a nine-minute, 17-second span to go up 5-0 on a Hunter Chauvette goal.
• Loyola came back with a trio of goals from its midfield as Brady Quinn ran a long dodge and fought through a pole to get the Greyhounds' first goal at 4:23. Mitch Kavey then used a Connor Wilbur feed to score his first career goal at 3:23, a goal that eventually sent the teams to the second quarter with the Blue Jays up three, 5-2. Brady West grabbed a ground ball off a missed shot on the left side of the crease and scored at 10:20 in the second quarter to make it 5-3.
• Johns Hopkins came back with two goals in a stretch of 55 seconds, however, with Matt Collinson scoring unassisted at 8:57 and Jimmy Ayers tallying one at 8:02 to push the margin to four, 7-3.
• Mason Cook, however, scored two unanswered to make it 7-5, but the Blue Jays scored twice to end the first half as part of a larger 6-0 run.
• Cook scored a team-high three goals, and Max Watkinson had 15 saves.

Watch The Game

• Friday's game against UMBC will stream live on ESPN+. 
• All Loyola home games will be on the ESPN+ platform, and international viewers can watch on Sidearm.

Series History

• Loyola and UMBC will meet for the 32nd time in series history, but for the first time in over a decade, on Friday night at UMBC Stadium.
• The teams last played a two-game home-and-home series in 2012 and 2013, a pair of Greyhounds victories. Loyola won both of those games, the second time taking a 21-9 win at Ridley Athletic Complex on February 26, 2013.
• UMBC, however, holds a 16-15 lead in the all-time series, buoyed by winning 13 of the programs' first 14 meetings between 1970-1983. The Retrievers took the first game, 9-6, in 1970, and Loyola earned its first win, 14-13, in 1973. UMBC reeled off 10 in a row, however, before Loyola won three in 1984, 1985, 1986. The Retrievers won again in 1987, as well as in 2004 and 2005, but otherwise, Loyola has won 14 of the last 17 times the teams have played.
• The most-recent game in 2013 featured a player – first-year Loyola Assistant Coach Justin Ward – score seven goals and assist on three others in driving rain and wind gusts up to 40 miles per hour. In addition to Ward's seven goals, which were the most by a Greyhounds player since 2000 at the time, Mike Sawyer and Nikko Pontrello each scored three for Loyola. 

Cook-ing On Attack

• Mason Cook missed the 2025 season's fall practice with an injury, but he got up to speed in his first season at Loyola. He saw an increased role on offense over the Greyhounds' last eight games, making his first collegiate start against Providence on March 8 and nailing down a spot in the opening 10 since.
• Cook exploded for 10 points on five goals and five assists against Holy Cross and scored two more against Navy to bring his season totals to 17 goals, seven assists and 24 points. He is the only freshman in NCAA Division I to post 10 points in a game this year, and he is the first Loyola freshman to do so since Pat Spencer had five goals and five assists in the 2016 Patriot League Championship Game against Army West Point. In the last five games (since Bucknell) of the year, Cook had 12 goals and five assists, while shooting .363 (12 of 33).
• Now a sophomore, Cook picked up where he left off with hat tricks in each of the Greyhounds' first two games of 2026. He now has four games with three or more goals over the last six he has played.

Standing Up In Starting Role

• The 2025 season was Max Watkinson's first as a full-time starter for the Greyhounds in goal; the Baltimore native started two games in 2024 before taking over the job in 2025. 
• He posted solid numbers in 14 games with 10 or more saves in 13 of the games. Watkinson posted his top save total with a career-high 19 at Rutgers, and he had three other games with 15 or more (at Providence, 15; at Bucknell, 17; at Towson, 17).
• Last season, Watkinson made 189 saves in 14 contests (13.5 per game), with a 55.1 saves percentage; he ranked sixth nationally in saves per game. In the final game of the 2025 regular-season, he moved into 10th in Loyola single-season history, passing his head coach's total of 188 in 1990.
• This year, in the first two games, Watkinson has made 12 saves against Maryland and 15 in the Johns Hopkins game giving him 16 games with 10 or more saves in 18 outings as a starter between the pipes.

Steady Presence

• Matthew Minicus opened the 2025 season, his junior campaign at Loyola, with a four-point effort against Georgetown, and the multi-point games continued to trend. Through the start of 2026, he has 25 career multi-goal outings and 17 multi-assist performances. 
• Last year, he led Loyola with 52 points on 25 goals and 27 assists, earning All-Patriot League Second Team recognition for the second year in a row. He registered his 100th career point with a first-quarter assist against Rutgers on February 21, 2025. 
• After he was held without a point for just the third time in his career on March 29, 2025, at Lehigh, Minicus finished 2025 with 26 points (4.8 per game) on 17 goals (3.4) and nine assists (1.8).
• His 52 points and 27 assists were career highs through three seasons. He had 49 points (33 goals, 16 assists) in 2023 and 43 (28, 15) last season. Minicus has played in 46 games, starting all but one, for the Greyhounds and already has 146 points with 87 goals and 59 assists. 

Percentage Of Points

• Loyola lost just two players – both on the defensive side of the ball  – who scored goals last year: Remi Reynolds (two goals) and Diego Roman (one). That gives Head Coach Charley Toomey a NCAA Division I leading 97.69 percent of goals scored back on the lineup for 2026.
• Only three players who had assists in 2025 – Reynolds (one), faceoff specialist Sawyer Allen (one) and short-stick defensive midfielder Cole Erickson (one) – departed following the season meaning 96.55 percent of assists are back on the roster this season.
• Max Watkinson (797-plus minutes) and Ben Abel (51) are back as the two goalkeepers who saw time in net last year.
• The biggest area of attrition for this year comes at the faceoff 'X' where Allen took 71 a season ago. Carson Hall (231) and Mason Graves (24), however, took a combined 255 at the dot, meaning Loyola has 88.89 percent of faceoffs taken back on the roster.

Close D Experience

• Loyola starting close defense from the season-opener at Maryland brought a considerable amount of experience to the field. Joe Houlihan returned to the team this season as a graduate student who started every game in 2024 and 2025, and Jake Wilson started each game in 2025. Chase Gregory moved down low as a starter on close after beginning his career as a long-stick midfielder who was at the top of the Greyhounds' rotation at that position before an injury cut short his 2025 campaign.
• The trio combined for 12 ground balls and six caused turnovers against the Terrapins and then had eight and two versus Johns Hopkins.

Toomey's Team

• Charley Toomey is in his 21st year as the head coach at Loyola and his 30th as a member of the Greyhounds' coaching staff. Overall, he is in his 34th year on the Evergreen campus, including his four seasons as a student-athlete from 1986-90.
• Toomey has a 187-114 career record. Early in the 2016 season, Toomey became the second coach in program history to reach and cross the 100-win plateau; he became the school's all-time leader in wins in 2024, passing Dave Cottle's 181.
• 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. Toomey will again be an assistant for Team USA in preparation for and competition at the 2027 Championships in Japan.

Alum Returns To Coaching Staff

• A familiar face is back on the Loyola sidelines this season with the return of two-time USILA All-American Justin Ward in a new role on the Evergreen campus.
• Ward joined the Loyola coaching staff in May as the program's newest assistant coach and offensive coordinator. The 2014 graduate of Loyola was a member of the Greyhounds' starting attack during their run to the 2012 NCAA Championship as part of a career that saw him earn All-America honors in 2013 (honorable mention) and 2014 (second team). He finished his four years at Loyola with 57 goals, 120 assists and 177 points. His 120 assists rank third in school career history, and his 177 points enter the 2026 season tied for 10th.
• Ward immediately entered the coaching ranks as an assistant coach at Georgetown from 2015-17 before moving on to Army West Point where he coached for eight years. The Black Knights led the Patriot League in scoring three of the last four years and ranked third in NCAA Division I in 2025 with 14.21 goals per game.

Up Next

• Loyola opens its 2026 Patriot League schedule on Saturday, February 28, when it makes the trip north to Hamilton, New York, for a 12 noon game at Colgate.
• The Greyhounds make their home debut three days later hosting Towson on Tuesday, March 3.