The Spartan men’s lacrosse team kicked off its season on Saturday, Feb. 15 with an outstanding 15-11 away win at Queens University of Charlotte, N.C. In addition to their win, two team members were rewarded for their efforts by being named the Sunshine State Conference’s players of the week. Junior Nick Ferreiro was honored as the SSC Defensive Player of the Week, and sophomore transfer Jake Rooney received the award of SSC Offensive Player of the Week. Rooney led the team’s offense with five goals in his first game playing for the Spartans.
Rooney, who played last year for Hofstra University, was very pleased with his performance. “It’s nice that I had a good game,” he said. “However, we need to take it one game at a time. We have to have a short memory and address what is happening.”
Rooney also said that he has not encountered any problems adjusting to his first season here at UT. “I feel adjusted. I have a very welcoming team. It is a nice university, so I was pretty comfortable right off the bat,” Rooney said.
Perhaps one of the major differences between Hofstra and UT is that Hofstra is a Division I school and UT is a Division II school. “There’s definitely a talent drop off, but the work ethic and schedule is similar to Division I,” Rooney said.
Some of the other main contributors for the Spartans in their game against Queens were Conor Whipple, Mike Morris and Andrew Failla. Whipple, a freshman, scored three goals in the contest. Morris, a sophomore transfer from Johns Hopkins University, also added two goals to the Spartans’ total of 15. Failla, a sophomore, played goalkeeper for most of the game and came up with 11 saves.
Coach Rory Whipple said, “They played very well. We beat a solid Queens team that is top five in the South. It definitely gives us confidence. We’re now ranked 13th.”
Regarding the team’s goals for the rest of the season, Whipple said, “Bottom line is that we want to be in the top eight and get into the NCAA tournament. Once we get in, our goal should be to win a national championship.”
Not only does he have a great bunch of talented and hardworking guys on his team this year, but Coach Whipple also has his son Conor, a freshman on the team. “It’s a great experience for me [to coach him],” said Whipple. I’ve coached him through the youth. It feels very rewarding. He’s a good player, and he’s definitely going to help. He plays attack with Rooney and Morris. Our attack unit could be one of the top offensive units in the country.”
His offensive players were not the only ones he felt played well against Queens, and he did not want to leave out the defensive players. “Defense as a whole played really well [against
Queens],” Whipple said.
On Friday night, the Spartans were able to upset No.6 New York Institute of Technology, for their best win in program history. Despite a shaky start in which NYIT went up 2-0, the Spartans dominated the contest, taking it 15-6 in their home opener. The leading scorers for UT were Whipple with four goals and Rooney with three. Nick Ferreiro (against his former team) and Brian Patton netted two goals each. Once again, Failla came up big in goal, saving a total of seven shots.
This victory gave the UT program its second ever win over a nationally- ranked opponent. It was also the highest ranked team they had ever beaten, as their only other previous win against a ranked opponent was against No. 9 Mars Hill two years ago. The Spartans will now return to North Carolina to face Catawba College on Feb 23. They will then return to Tampa and will have four consecutive home games between March 1 and March 15.
Andrew Stamas can be reached at andrew.stamas@spartans.ut.edu.