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PREVIEW: NE10 First Round - RV Assumption at No. 9 Saint Anselm

4/30/2021 7:30:00 PM

MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Saint Anselm College men's lacrosse team, ranked ninth in NCAA Division II by the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association, will host Assumption in the Quarterfinals of the Northeast-10 Conference postseason on Saturday.

Saint Anselm comes into play with a perfect 10-0 record, claiming a share of the NE10 Regular Season Championship and earning the top seed. Winners of 13 consecutive games, the Hawks will take on an Assumption program that upset its NE10 First Round counterpart, Saint Michael's, on Wednesday. The Greyhounds are receiving votes in the Division II national coaches' poll.

The winner of Saturday's game will earn a spot in the NE10 Semifinals to be played on Wednesday, May 5 at the higher seed. The NE10 Championship is scheduled for Saturday, May 8 and will be hosted by the highest remaining seed.

Live Statistics and Live Video will be available on the Saint Anselm athletics website. Saint Anselm students, faculty, staff and members of the Monastery are permitted to attend Hawks sporting events on campus. All other spectators are prohibited from attending athletics contests on the Hilltop. For the complete Spectator Policy, click here.

SCOUTING SAINT ANSELM

  • Saint Anselm owns a 10-0 record so far in 2021, winning the NE10 Regular Season Championship for the first time. Saint Anselm has captured a program-record 13 consecutive games dating back to the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and is ranked ninth in NCAA Division II by the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association – that ranking is believed to be the highest in team history.
  • Saint Anselm picked up three major awards on Wednesday as the Northeast-10 Conference revealed its 2021 Men's Lacrosse All-Conference selections. The Hawks also earned a program-record nine All-Conference awards and had three All-Rookie team honorees.
  • Senior CJ Hart (Reading, Mass.) was named NE10 Goalkeeper of the Year and sophomore Jack Andrews (Cumberland, R.I.) collected Co-Rookie of the Year honors. Head Coach Michael Sciamanna was voted by his peers as the league's Coach of the Year.
  • Hart becomes the program's first-ever Goalkeeper of the Year award recipient while Andrews is the first from Saint Anselm to capture Rookie of the Year honors since backstop Troy Peters '03 in 1999. Sciamanna is the team's first Coach of the Year since Rick Senatore was feted in 2007.
  • Seniors Matt Ward (Shrewsbury, Mass.) and Griffin Shoemaker (Shirley, Mass.), the team co-captains, joined Hart on the First Team All-Conference roster. Andrews was named Second Team All-NE10, alongside seniors Joseph Hartigan (Brookline, Mass.) and Thomas Mapstone (Andover, Mass.).
  • Senior Ryan Richards (Mendon, Mass.) drew Third Team All-Conference plaudits, as did sophomore Ryan Slattery (North Andover, Mass.) and face-off specialist Craig Yannone (Lynnfield, Mass.). Andrews, Slattery, and Yannone were placed on the league's All-Rookie Team, rounding out the award winners.
  • The top goalkeeper in NCAA Division II, Hart leads the nation in goals-against average (4.71) and save percentage (.667) across his team's 10 games in 2021. Winning each of those 10 games in net for the Hawks, he has racked up 70 saves this year, including a season-high 15 against Franklin Pierce on Apr. 17.
  • With the help of his defense, Hart has helped Saint Anselm to post three first-half shutouts in 2021. His 4.71 goals-against average is the top single-season mark in Hawks history and he is the third goalkeeper in team history to reach 10 victories in a season. This season, Hart was honored on the USILA Division II Team of the Week twice.
  • Through 10 games in 2021, Andrews has scored 28 goals with eight assists for 36 points (28-8=36). After scoring three goals and an assist across three games in the shortened 2020 season, Andrews has posted 2.80 goals per game in his first full season to rank second in the NE10. He leads the NE10 and is fourth nationally with eight man-up goals.
  • Averaging 3.60 points per game to rank fourth in the league, Andrews opened his season with exactly four points of offense in each of his first six games. Finishing with no fewer than three goals in his first seven games of the year, he logged a career-best six points via two goals and four assists at Southern New Hampshire on Apr. 24.
  • In his sixth season with Saint Anselm, Sciamanna has guided the team to a program-record 13 game winning streak, entering the NE10 postseason on Saturday. One of the most consistent programs in the Northeast, Sciamanna inherited a program that posted a 2-11 record in 2015 and has logged a 47-24 record since the start of the 2016 season.
  • Winning 31 of a possible 43 games in the last four seasons, Sciamanna sits just two victories shy of setting the all-time program record for wins as a Head Coach. By virtue of winning the team's first-ever NE10 Regular Season Championship, Sciamanna has led Saint Anselm to the postseason in five seasons.
  • Ward is in the midst of an outstanding senior season, scoring 34 goals with four assists for 38 points (34-4=38). Leading the NE10 in goals per game (3.4), he ranks third in the conference with 3.7 points per game and fourth with five man-up goals. He owns a 15-game goal scoring streak, logging 43 in that span, and his point-scoring streak is currently at 21 games.
  • Ward recently became just the sixth student-athlete in team history to score 100 career goals and enters the upcoming NE10 postseason with 102 goals and 32 assists for 134 career points (102-32=134) in just 43 games played. Ward was voted to the All-Rookie Team as a freshman in 2018 and was a Preseason All-America selection by the USILA.
  • As a senior, Shoemaker has (so far) scored 18 goals with 11 assists for 29 points (18-11=29). He opened the season with two goals and four assists for six points (2-4=6) at Southern New Hampshire and went on to score five goals with an assist against Saint Michael's on Apr. 3. He ranks ninth in the NE10 in goals per game (2.0) and points per game (3.22).
  • In nine games this season, Yannone has performed admirably at the face-off "X", winning 126-of-204 face-offs for a percentage of .618. Ranking second in the NE10 in winning percentage, he has also averaged exactly seven ground balls per game to rank third in the conference and 14th in all of NCAA Division II.

SCOUTING ASSUMPTION

  • The Greyhounds won their first-ever NE10 postseason game on Wednesday, traveling to Saint Michael's and posting a 10-7 victory.
  • The Purple Knights jumped out to a 1-0 lead three minutes into the contest and dominated much of the first ten minutes of action. Ryan Healey put Assumption on the board at 5:06 and the Greyhounds added one more goal for a 2-1 lead after the first quarter. They stretched their lead to 4-2 at the half and were up 7-5 through three quarters.
  • Nicholas Shanley led the offense with three goals, one assist and three ground balls while Ryan Healey and Nolan Sheehan each had two goals and one assist. Colin Malone was dominant in net with a career-high 20 saves while allowed just seven goals to keep the Purple Knights at bay.
  • Malone leads the NE10 with 13.62 saves per game, a figure that ranks ninth in NCAA Division II.
  • Assumption has posted a 12-15 record in the last three seasons under third-year Head Coach Guy Bourdon. Across the last decade of play, the Greyhounds have posted a 48-77 record and won nine games in a season most recently in the 2015 campaign.
  • The Greyhounds were picked to finish sixth in the NE10 Preseason Coaches' Poll to start the year. Shanley led the Greyhounds in the pandemic-shortened season with seven goals and 13 assists for 20 points (7-13=20) and Grant won 33-of-66 face-offs and earned a team-leading 12 ground balls.

ALL-TIME vs. ASSUMPTION

  • Saint Anselm leads the all-time series against Assumption by a 20-7 margin. The Hawks carry a five-game winning streak over the Greyhounds into play on Saturday and have won seven of the last eight games against Assumption.
  • After dropping the first two meetings in team history during the 1994 and 1995 seasons, the Hawks enjoyed an eight-game winning streak from Apr. 17, 1996 through Apr. 27, 2003. The Greyhounds have never defeated Saint Anselm three times in a row.

ALL-TIME in NE10 POSTSEASON

  • The Hawks are 4-14 all-time in the NE10 postseason and most recently made the NE10 Championship in 2018.
  • In that run to the NE10 title game, the Hawks overwhelmed Saint Rose by a 19-9 margin in the First Round before stunning the No. 1 team in NCAA Division II, Le Moyne, in Syracuse, N.Y. in overtime by a 9-8 margin.
  • The Hawks fell to Merrimack, 11-7, in the first NE10 title game for Saint Anselm and the Warriors went on to win the NCAA Division II Championship that season – the four-goal game would be the closest defeat for Merrimack in the postseason.
  • The Greyhounds last made the NE10 postseason in 2015, falling in the First Round to Franklin Pierce. Assumption was ousted from the playoffs in 2011 as well, its first-ever NE10 postseason appearance.
  • Assumption and Saint Anselm have never met in the NE10 playoffs.
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