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| Ethan Scully |
This Week's Outlook: The College of Wooster (9-8, 5-3 North Coast Athletic Conference) travels to No. 8 Denison University (13-1, 8-0 NCAC) for a 7:30 p.m. NCAC Tournament semifinal contest on Wednesday, April 26. The winner advances to Saturday's championship game at a time to be determined at the site of the highest remaining seed.
Media Coverage: Denison will have live stats and live video available at http://portal.stretchinternet.com/denison. Additionally, fans can follow the men's lacrosse team's Twitter handle @WoosterLacrosse for score updates at the end of each period. The main Championship Central webpage can be found here.
Ticket Information: Ticket prices are set by the conference office and are $7 for adults, and $3 for children 18-years-old and under. College of Wooster students are admitted free of charge, but must present a student identification card. Additionally, NCAC guest passes and lifetime passes are valid for complementary admission at the NCAC Tournament.
Championship Gear: Family members and fans of the Wooster lacrosse program can check out the NCAC Tournament store at https://ktforms.com/ and use the access code ncacml. The store will be open through May 3, and orders will be shipped approximately three weeks after the store closes. Please note you must select Wooster in the drop-down to ensure orders are shipped to the correct location. All orders associated with Wooster will be shipped to head coach P.J. Kavanagh, and you will need to arrange pick-up with him. There is no on-site championship merchandise sales at the NCAC Tournament.
Wooster's NCAC Tournament History: Wooster is in the NCAC Tournament for back-to-back years after not making the tournament in 2014 or 2015, and for the second consecutive year will travel to top-seeded Denison for the semifinal round. Overall, Wooster is making its third appearance in the NCAC Tournament. The Scots qualified for the inaugural league tourney in 2013 as the third-seed, and lost 13-9 at second-seeded Ohio Wesleyan University. Wooster played a very competitive game that was well within its reach, but the Battling Bishops edged out the Scots by a four-goal margin, just like the regular-season meeting between the two squads that year. Last year, Denison topped Wooster 17-8 in the semifinals that saw the Scots play the Big Red even in the second half.
A Look-Back at this Year's Regular-Season Meeting: Wooster led then-ninth-ranked Denison 4-3 with over 11 minutes remaining in the second period before trailing by three heading into the fourth period, but an eight-goal final stanza as part of a larger 10-0 run sealed the victory and a share of first-place in the NCAC standings for the Big Red as the Scots fell by a final count of 17-6 on April 12. Senior Josh Herold (Massillon, Ohio/Jackson) tallied three assists on the night to move into fifth-place on the program's all-time career list with 182. Junior Sam Kuhn (Towson, Md./Loyola Blakefield) closed the opening stanza with his 26th goal of the season off the assist from senior Matt Parmelee (South Glastonbury, Conn./Glastonbury), while junior Ian Brim (Dublin, Ohio/Dublin Jerome) and Parmelee each converted less than four minutes into the second period to give the Scots a 4-3 advantage.
Younger Brother Reins Supreme: Herold moved past older brother Tom, a 2015 alumnus of the College, with his 95th career goal during Saturday's 18-8 setback at Ohio Wesleyan in the regular-season finale. The goal moved the younger Herold into ninth on the program's all-time goal list. Entering the NCAC Tournament, Herold sits three assists shy of 100 for his career, and eight points shy of 200.
The Vacuum Cleaner: When there's a groundball to be scooped up, there's a good chance it winds up in the stick of junior long-stick middie Jack Gilio (New Canaan, Conn./New Canaan), who recently became the third Scot to surpass 200 career groundballs, a stat kept at the College since 1999. Gilio leads the team with 74 groundballs on the year, and he's backed that up with 39 caused turnovers, nine better than first-year Noah Plotkin (Scottsdale, Ariz./Chaparral) in the caused turnover department. Gilio had 89 groundballs a season ago, and he's the only player in the program since groundballs have been officially tracked to have two seasons with at least 70 groundballs.
Caused Turnover Machine: Wooster currently leads the conference with 12.41 caused turnovers per game, and should the Scots remain in first, it would mark the third straight year leading the league in that stat. In fact, three of the four leading individuals in the conference in caused turnovers are Scots in Gilio (39), Plotkin (30), and sophomore Ethan Scully (Novelty, Ohio/Hawken School) (28).
Weekly Conference Honors: Parmelee and Herold picked up NCAC Athlete-of-the-Week honors in back-to-back weeks. Parmelee was honored on April 3 after he scored a career-high five goals against Oberlin College, helping the Scots start league play at 3-0 for the second straight year. Parmelee added two goals and an assist during a 12-9 non-conference win over Otterbein University in the same week. A week later, Herold took home the award in helping Wooster improve to 5-0 in NCAC play for the first time in program history. In Wooster's 11-6 win over Kenyon College, Herold found the back of the net four times, and followed that up with three goals and two assists in an 11-9 win at DePauw University.