Former New Canaan lacrosse star Tom Carey had a superb year as a starting goalie who helped lead Ohio State to the championship game of the NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Tournament and that was a major highlight of the achievements of many former Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference men’s lacrosse players.
The FCIAC has long had a proud tradition of dominance in the state from its boys high school lacrosse teams and plenty of those former conference players have continued their careers as student-athlete laxmen at their respective colleges.
Many of them are listed below under which high school they each graduated from along with their statistics and highlights for their respective colleges this past season:
Brien McMahon
Drew D’Antonio started in all 11 games as a senior attackman for Quinnipiac and had eight goals and eight assists. D’Antonio had 39 points (22 goals and 17 assists) during his last two years at Quinnipiac after having played his first two years at Bryant.
Danbury
Seniors John Foristall (attackman) and Nicholas Hamed (midfielder), junior defenseman Kevin Keiser and sophomore attackman Robby Swensen all played for their hometown Western Connecticut State University team.
Foristal racked up 60 points (34 goals and 26 assists) while starting in 14 of 15 games played. Swenson had 22 goals and six assists while starting in 11 of 12 games. Keiser started in all 16 games and had 29 ground balls and caused 18 turnovers.
Darien
The senior members of the 2016 Darien team which went 23-0 and won FCIAC and state Class L championships, with their respective colleges listed in parenthesis, include: defenseman Mark Evanchick (Penn), midfielder Jack Book (Penn), attackman Jack Kniffin (Brown), attackman Colin Minicus (Amherst), midfielder Hudson Hamill (Washington & Lee), Liam Rischman (UVM), Jack Kirby (Colby after a post-grad year at Westminster), midfielder Will Simpson (Colorado College) and attackman Brendan Seller (Colby).
Minicus had a very good freshman year as he started in 12 of 18 games, was Amherst’s team leader in points (73) and assists (42) and third on the team in goals (31). He was named the New England Small College Athletic Conference Player of the Week in the middle of April when he had four goals and five assists in one victory and then dished out eight assists in the next game, another victory. Minicus was selected Honorable Mention All-New England Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association.
Kniffin had 22 goals and 11 assists while starting in nine of 15 games for Brown. Among his highlights, Kniffin fired in the game-winning overtime goal in a 13-12 victory over Providence on April 18.
Hamill started in 11 of 17 games for the Generals and had 28 points (10 goals, 18 assists).
The 2015 Darien graduates also won FCIAC and state Class L championships when they were seniors while the seniors on Darien’s 2014 team won conference and state Class M titles.
The seniors from Darien’s 2015 team now on college rosters include: goalie Phil Rech (Washington & Lee), defensemen Pete Doering (Denison), Jack Feeley (Bucknell) and Robbie Arrix (Hamilton) and midfielders Ian Burgoyne (Navy), Will Hamernick (Bryant), and Andrew Pugliese (Boston University).
Rech started in goal in 12 of 13 games, allowed an average of 10.23 goals per game and had 95 saves for a .537 save percentage.
Doering saw action in 12 games. Reed appeared in 11 games.
The 2014 Darien graduates who completed their junior years in college include: goalie Phil Huffard (Yale), midfielder John Reed (Bucknell), attackman Peter Lindley (Roanoke College), defenseman Sam Meyjes (Colorado College), defenseman Brad McCarthy (Colby), midfielder Kyle Cornell (Bryant), defenseman Kyle Gifford (Washington & Lee), and attackman Goose Bolton (McGill).
Lindley fired in 51 goals and added seven assists while starting in 13 of the 15 games he played.
Huffard was Yale’s starting goalie for 13 games in which he totaled 734 minutes, had 120 saves and a save percentage of .498 and a winning percentage of .583.
Cornell had seven goals and 22 assists in 19 games. Reed appeared in 11 games.
The 2013 Darien graduates on their respective college rosters include: midfielders Brendan Hathaway (Gettysburg) and Graham Lesko (Swarthmore), and attacker Kevin Seiler (Colby), who had 22 goals and three assists this past spring.
Lesko played in 63 games and had six goals and nine assists in his career, including two goals and three assists in 16 games this year.
Hathaway was a senior midfielder who played in 40 games in his career, including seven this year.
Fairfield-Ludlowe
Kyle Mason was a senior midfielder for Union College.
Fairfield-Warde
Kyle Scheetz was a junior midfielder for Penn.
Greenwich
John Tooher was a sophomore attackman for Rhodes College who started in 15 of 16 games and was second on the team in goals (25), assists (16), points (41), shooting percentage (.301, 25 goals on 83 shots), and ground balls (42).
Tooher was selected to the Southern Athletic Association All-Conference Second Team and he was voted the SAA Player of the Week after an incredible weekend in which he scored five goals, including a couple dramatic ones. Tooher scored three goals in the fourth quarter to lead the Lynx to an 8-7 comeback victory over Sewanee and give them their first ever outright SAA regular-season championship. Tooher scored the game-tying goal with just 37 seconds remaining in regulation and shortly after that he fired in the game-winner.
Ryan Flippin was a junior midfielder for Wesleyan who had seven goals and three assists.
New Canaan
Tom Carey was Ohio State’s starting goalie for the last three years of his career. He was recently selected by the Denver Outlaws in the eighth round of the Major League Lacrosse draft after a superb senior season in which Carey was a USILA Third Team All-American and First Team All-Big Ten selection.
He led the Big Ten and was eighth in the NCAA in goal-against average (8.27), and he was 12th in the nation and the conference leader with a .544 save percentage. Carey had a 32-19 record, an 8.8 goals-against average and a .522 save percentage for his career.
Michael Kraus had a fantastic freshman season as an attackman for Virginia who racked up 56 points (34 goals) and was selected the ACC Freshman of the Year. He was the only freshman on the All-ACC First Team and just the seventh freshman in school history to be so honored. Kraus ranked third in the ACC with 2.27 goals per game. He was a USILA All-American Honorable Mention.
Harry Stanton and Cole Turpin were both juniors for Wesleyan.
Stanton had an excellent season as he was quite the sniping attackman who fired in a school-record 86 goals and added 29 assists to become the New England Small College Athletic Conference leader in goals and points.
Stanton was selected a USILA/Nike Division III First-Team All-American after he was selected to the All-NESCAC First Team for the second consecutive year. Stanton now has 217 career points (164 goals, 53 assists) which currently has him tied for third on Wesleyan’s all-time scoring list.
Turpin started in 21 of 22 games as a midfielder and had 29 points (16 goals, 13 assists).
Peter Richardson was a senior tri-captain and and attackman for Union College who was second on the team in goals (20), assists (13) and points (33). The four-year starter earned All-Liberty League Honorable Mention for the second straight year. Last year Richardson was the team leader with 27 goals and second on the team in points (45) and assists (18).
Jimmy Joe Granito was a senior captain and Drexel’s starting goalie for the second straight year. He had a .536 save percentage (177 saves, 153 goals against) and allowed an average of 10.96 goals per game.
Austin Nadar was a sophomore attackman and Owen Toland a sophomore midfielder on the Chapman club team which won the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association national championship.
Jack Gilio was a junior long-stick middie who started in 17 of 18 games, had one goal and one assist, and picked up 77 ground balls for Wooster College. He has started 46 of 51 games in his first three years and is already among Wooster’s all-time leaders with 207 ground balls.
Eric Persky and Kevin McDonough each completed their careers as defenders for Penn. Persky started in 21 of 44 career games, including 11 of 13 as a senior, and grabbed 44 career ground balls.
David Strupp saw action in all 13 games, starting eight, as a freshman defenseman for Harvard. He scored two goals, caused five turnovers and picked up nine ground balls.
Logan Hart was a sophomore defender at Skidmore who has started in all 31 games during the first two years of his career. This past year he snatched 26 ground balls.
Peter Swindell played in 15 games as a freshman midfielder at Loyola (Maryland). He had two goals and an assist and was selected to the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll.
Kyle Smith was a freshman midfielder for Denver who played in 10 games and had a goal and an assist.
Duke Repko, a junior, and sophomore Teddy Dumbauld were both midfielders for Bucknell. Ted Bossidy was a junior midfielder for Franklin & Marshall. Max Begoon had hopes of increased playing time as a sophomore midfielder at Denver but he suffered a season-ending injury in the preseason.
John Rhudy was a junior defenseman for Army. Carson Armstrong was a redshirt sophomore defenseman for Vermont. Frank Cognetta was a sophomore defenseman at Richmond.
Clayton Burt was a freshman attackman for Syracuse. Justin Meichner was a freshman attackman for Georgetown. Seth Neeleman was a freshman defenseman for Army.
Norwalk
Clifford Joseph was a junior defenseman who started in three of 14 games for Endicott.
Ridgefield
Simon Mathias had a very good year as a sophomore attackman at Penn. He led the team with 48 points (28 goals and 20 assists), was the only Quaker to record a point in every game and he has had at least one point in all 28 games of his career. Mathias was selected Second Team All-Ivy.
Mathias has started all 28 games in the first two years of his career and collected 56 goals and 31 assists.
St. Joseph
Ryan Corcoran had five goals and five assists in nine games as a junior midfielder for Quinnipiac.
Peter Basher was a sophomore midfielder who had 11 goals and an assist in 16 games for Pace.
Mike Gotch was a freshman defenseman and Kyle Souza a sophomore defenseman for Dominican College. Souza picked up 19 ground balls and caused 13 turnovers in 15 games.
Mike Sudora was a freshman attackman for Lemoyne College.
Stamford
Tyequan Bonaparte started in 10 of 12 games for Western Connecticut State University as a freshman midfielder.
Staples
Colin Bannon was a senior attack/middie for Endicott who had 29 goals and 23 assists this final year and racked up 293 points (155 goals and 138 assists) during his four-year career.
Lance Lonergan Jr., Josh Willis and Cole Gendels all played for Union College.
Lonergan was a senior tri-captain and defender who tied for second on the team with 18 caused turnovers, picked up a dozen ground balls and was recipient of the Leadership Award out of all of Union’s male athletes in all sports at Union’s year-end athletic banquet.
Willis was a freshman long-stick middie who scored eight goals, was second on the team with 48 ground balls and tied for second with 18 caused turnovers.
Gendels was a junior who played one game as goalie and one in attack.
Quinn Mendelson was a senior captain for Wesleyan who started in all 16 games at defense.
Eric Zuruehle was a junior midfielder at Hamilton who had four goals and two assists in three games.
Ross Goldberg (attackman) and Ben Schwaeber (faceoff specialist) were both freshmen at Colorado College. Schwaeber played in 11 games, was 50 of 89 on faceoffs and added a pair of assists.
Connor Chamberlin was an attackman at Monmouth. Michael Reale was a freshman attack/middie for the University of Richmond. Sam Ahlgrin was a freshman defenseman at Marist.
Wilton
Ted Ottens was a junior midfielder and Michael Brown a freshman midfielder for Brown.
Ottens is a supreme face-off man who won 270-of-452 face-offs (.597) this past year and 382-of-649 (.589) during the first three years of his career.
Brendan Devane was a sophomore attackman and Reid Melillo a sophomore midfielder at Roanoke College.
Devane has started in 19 of 33 games during the first two years of his career and has thus far tallied 50 points and 37 goals. This past sophomore season he started in 15 of 16 games and had 27 goals and eight assists. Melillo played in 11 games this year.
Michael Burns was a senior midfielder for Richmond.
Christian Hansson played in nine games as a sophomore midfielder for Hamilton.
