Historic season for men’s lacrosse

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The University of Dallas men’s lacrosse team wrapped up the 2018 season this past Saturday with a 20-7 defeat by Southwestern University.

It was a relatively close affair throughout the first half, as the score was 8-3 at halftime in favor of Southwestern. However, Southwestern was able to put together a strong second half, and ultimately pulled further away.

Freshmen attacker Tucker Jameson recorded a hat-trick when he scored the first three goals for the Crusaders. Freshmen defender Alex Graham provided Jameson with an assist on the first goal while freshmen midfielder, Jake Frederick, dished the assist on Jameson’s third goal.

The Crusaders scored one goal in the third quarter courtesy of freshman midfielder JP Hasson.

In the fourth quarter the Crusaders scored three more goals, one from junior attacker Peter Early, another from Hasson, and the final one from sophomore midfielder Tyler Smith. Smith also assisted Hasson’s goal.

Sophomore goalkeeper Christian Lopez played all 60 minutes in goal and recorded 17 saves.

Although the season did not end how they wanted, UD men’s lacrosse can be proud of the work they accomplished. The 2018 season saw the Crusaders post a new school record for most wins in a season with six.

“I was really happy with how we developed as a team,” Hasson said. “We’ve got a lot of young players and we all learned a lot from this year. We had the best season in team history and we’re only going to improve as we get older. I’m excited to see where we can take things.”

The current team is young with the majority of the players being underclassmen. This means that a core group of the team will be returning for the next couple of years which provides further optimism for the upcoming seasons.

“We’ve got a young and talented roster, it will be great to see the team improve in skill and our team chemistry on the field,” Smith said.

The end of the season statistical leaders for the Crusaders included Smith, who led the team with 29 goals and 39 total points. Frederick lead the team in assists with 13.

“I’m most pleased with character growth we’ve experienced, it’s made the team better,” Frederick said.

Other notable performers included Jameson with 24 goals, Hasson with 21 goals and 11 assists, Early with 12 goals and 6 assists, and freshman Chasen Reynolds with 10 goals.

Another positive takeaway from the season was the overall contribution of the team. The Crusaders had eleven different players involved in scoring plays. Joshua McClendon recorded 8 points while Cole Griffin and Graham each recorded 5 points. Bogar Trout III and Ben Blessard rounded out the team with one assist apiece.

The success of a good season brings higher expectations. These expectations are exactly what Early is looking forward to next year.

“[I’m most excited about having] a higher expectation of the team to be better and to constantly raise the standards of ourselves,” Early said.

Head coach Sam Ashton has done a great job in his first two seasons and will look to keep building on the positive results and success that the team is achieving.

“It was a great year to get this program going in the right direction,” Smith said. “I am really looking forward to seeing our team grow and develop next season.”

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