Junior midfielder Matt Parmelee aims to improve upon his 17 goals and 11 assists from last season.

A little over a year ago at this time, The College of Wooster hired P.J. Kavanagh to take over its men's lacrosse program. While the first season was a success – 9-7 record – the second-year head coach feels much more settled in and ready to implement his philosophies and strategies, and those will begin to be felt on the field in 2016.

"Being able to go through an entire fall ball and off-season with all that entails, including academic support and community service endeavors, and team building, has been a big advantage," said Kavanagh, who owns a 63-48 record as an NCAA Div. III coach. "Our goal is to become the signature up-tempo team in the nation. To that end, all of our fitness training, skill development, and tactics are designed around that mission. This includes the type of player we recruit and the type of player who contributes most on the field."

Kavanagh has set clear goals for the offense – to take 45 shots a game, to shoot at 33 percent efficiency, thus scoring 15 goals a game. Wooster reached the 15-goal mark five times last spring and won all five. "If we take high-volume, high-quality shots when intelligently pushing transition, we're going to create great opportunities," he commented.

Back to "quarterback" the offense is junior Josh Herold, who was the Fighting Scots' second-leading scorer with 42 points coming on 25 goals and 17 assists, often deferring to his older brother, now alum Tom Herold. The younger Herold was also a significant factor as a freshman with 31 points (13 goals, 18 assists).

Wooster's other top returning attackers consist of Alexander Bloom, Sam Kuhn, and Pat McKay. Bloom and Kuhn are both sophomores who combined for 15 points (11 goals, 4 assists), while McKay enters his final season with 40 career goals and 10 assists.

Expected to play key roles during transition chances are offensive-minded midfielders Nate Weltman, Matt Parmelee, Ian Brim, and Nate Goodin. Weltman, a senior, has been one of the Scots' top players, netting 19 goals each of the past two years, while Parmelee, once a two-sport standout (soccer), decided to focus on lacrosse after his 17-goal, 11-assist sophomore campaign. Brim is among the "most improved on the team," according to Kavanagh, and should make a bigger impact as he enters his second season, and Goodin has the potential to be "an explosive middie."

On the other half, Kavanagh looks for Wooster to maintain its traditionally strong defense – the Scots have finished among the top-25 nationally in goals allowed two of the last three years – behind an up-tempo style of play. "We want to be aggressive, we want to apply a lot of pressure, and be able to generate transition opportunities for the team."

One of the top returnees is sophomore long-stick midfielder Jack Gilio, a second-team all-conference award winner as a rookie (the lone freshman in the conference to be first- or second-team) when he collected 41 groundballs and 14 caused turnovers. He'll be complemented by senior Dan Gorznynski, who helped lead the Scots to a 7-2 start last year before suffering a season-ending injury, and junior CJ Polak, who piled up 34 groundballs and six assists, among others.

The rest of the defense was significantly impacted by graduation, as Wooster will have almost an entirely new look at close defense and goalkeeper. Senior John McCarthy, with 37 career games of experience, is being counted on to be the leader among the defenders, while sophomore Ryan Harms and freshman Ethan Scully are expected to step up after being significant contributors during the fall, according to Kavanagh.

There is a strong competition at the goalie position, where Aaron Levy and Tyler LaCroix both may get looks. Levy is a senior and was expected to be the starter last spring before being sidelined with a season-ending injury, while LaCroix, a sophomore, played well in spot duty with a .582 save percentage during six appearances.

Others to note include sophomore Erik Barroso, the squad's new No. 1 face-off specialist, and first-year Brooks Kiley, who could develop into a dynamic long-stick midfielder.

While Kavanagh has a relatively inexperienced group overall, he firmly believes Wooster has the ability to develop into a top-four team within the highly-competitive North Coast Athletic Conference by the end of the year, and with that finish comes a postseason berth.

"The first goal is to give ourselves an opportunity to compete for a conference championship, with greater goals to follow," he said. "The keys to us meeting those goals fall back on staying true to our identity, which is to play aggressive defense in front of strong goaltending, to create a high volume of transition opportunities, which we'll intelligently capitalize on. We're going to play fast, smart, aggressive, and relentless."