Don’t tell University at Albany men’s lacrosse coach Scott Marr that winning a national championship is out of the question.
He’s only been dreaming about the moment since he arrived five years ago, and now he said he has the team that can do it.
We’ve got every position filled, said Marr. `We have a goaltender, we have a good defense, we have a strong midfield and we have good goal scorers on the attack. It’s just a matter of playing well.`
The Great Danes have been playing well ` well enough to be ranked second in the nation by Marr’s peers in the coaches’ poll and third by the media that follows the NCAA Division I world.
High praise indeed for a program that is only five years removed from being an afterthought on its own campus.
`It’s a little bit (weird), but we don’t care,` said sophomore long-stick midfielder Chris Schongar, a Shenendehowa graduate. `We don’t look at the rankings. We want to win the (America East) conference first.`
Albany took a big step toward that goal Saturday at Fallon Field by beating America East rival University of Maryland-Baltimore County 13-9. The Retrievers had been a thorn in the Great Danes’ side for the last three years, beating Albany four out of their last five meetings before Saturday.
`We needed this for home-field advantage (in the America East playoffs),` said Schongar. `We knew if we beat them today, we’d have an excellent chance of hosting the tournament.`
The scene at Fallon Field ` an overflow crowd of 1,225 including several hundred Albany students ` was a far cry from what Great Dane home games were like when they jumped to the Division I level five years ago. Back then, there were more Albany players on the sideline than there were fans watching the games.
Even when Marr recruited Schongar out of Shen three years ago, the program was only beginning to forge an identity with the Capital District sports community, having won two consecutive America East titles and working on a third.
Marr’s sales pitch to Schongar back then ` bigger things lie ahead.
`He told me we’d be one of the top 10 teams in the country,` said Schongar.
Coincidentally, Schongar’s first season at Albany was the first one in four years where the Great Danes failed to win the America East title. UMBC took care of that by beating Albany 19-10 in the championship game.
Needless to say, the Great Danes were not about to let UMBC do that to them Saturday. Albany jumped out to a 5-1 halftime lead and never let the Retrievers get any closer than two goals the rest of the way.
`We talked about it right after we beat Colgate (last Tuesday),` said Marr. `We reminded them about last year’s loss, and we definitely had motivation.`
Leading scorers Frank Resetarits and Merrick Thomson played their usual roles for Albany in the victory. Resetarits registered three goals and an assist, while Thomson scored twice before leaving the game in the fourth quarter with a hip injury.
But the Great Danes proved that they are more than just a two-man show. Corey Small contributed two goals, while Jordan Levine supplied a career-high three assists to go along with a second quarter goal. Mike Ammann and Derek Dale each added a goal and two assists.
`The thing is we put eight kids, nine kids or 10 kids on the field who can score,` said Marr.
Even goaltender Brett Queener tried to get into the act. He charged down field several times and carried the ball into the offensive third of the field twice looking for a shot.
That move came back to haunt Queener once, as UMBC forced him to turn the ball over and scored before he got back between the pipes. But Marr said he doesn’t mind seeing him take that chance.
`He makes so many things happen but it makes your heart stop for a moment when he’s running back,` said Marr. `Fortunately, he gets back quickly.`
It’s that fearless style of play ` whether it’s a full-field charge by Queener or a rocket shot from Resetarits or Thomson ` that could propel Albany to the top of the NCAA heap. Unlike other major Division I sports such as football or basketball, lacrosse isn’t dominated by large universities with multi-million dollar budgets. A smaller school like Johns Hopkins or Princeton can compete at the same level as a Syracuse or a Virginia.
The Great Danes ` with an 8-0 record, a top-five ranking and wins against Johns Hopkins, Massachusetts and now UMBC ` figure they’re up there with the elite. And it’s exactly what Marr envisioned.
`I imagined winning a national championship every day,` he said. `You can’t do it if you don’t dream it.“
