NEW YORK – With the regular season complete and the 2016 BIG EAST Men’s Lacrosse Championship Presented by Jeep two days away, the league announced the regular season major award winners and all-conference first and second teams on Tuesday.
For the second year in a row, the coaches’ preseason picks panned out as Denver junior
Connor Cannizzaro was voted Offensive Player of the Year and Marquette grad student
Liam Byrnes, Defensive Player of the Year. Denver sophomore faceoff specialist
Trevor Baptiste repeated as Midfielder of the Year, sharing his title with Villanova senior midfielder
Jack Curran. Also for the second consecutive year, a freshman earned one of the league’s major awards as this year Denver’s
Alex Ready was voted Goalkeeper of the Year. In 2015, Baptiste was Midfielder of the Year as a rookie. Georgetown attackman
Daniel Bucaro was selected as the league’s first Freshman of the Year, an award added by league in 2016. Under the guidance of head coach Bill Tierney
, Denver earns their first BIG EAST Coaching Staff of the Year honor after leading the Pioneers to their third straight undefeated season in league play. Denver was ranked as the top team in the country for eight weeks in at least one of the major polls this season and will be the No. 1 seed for the third year in the league’s tournament, which will be held at Denver, May 5-7.
Cannizzaro, one of six juniors to be named a Tewaaraton Award Nominee, led the top-ranked Pioneers in points with 61 on a team-high 40 goals and 21 assists in 2016. A 2015 USILA First Team All-America pick, BIG EAST Offensive Player of the Year Cannizzaro has eight hat tricks (24 in his career) and a sock trick in 2016. He currently ranks sixth in the country in points per game at 4.69 and sixth in goals per game at 3.08. Cannizzaro is 13th on the career active points list (185) and 10th on the active goals list at 123. The junior was BIG EAST Offensive Player of the Week twice this season and was on the weekly honor roll three times.
BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Year, Byrnes, led the league and ended the regular season third in NCAA Division I with 2.23 caused turnovers per game. Byrnes is Marquette’s all-time career leader with 204 ground balls and 98 caused turnovers and has played in all 58 games in program history. The
Inside Lacrosse Midseason Second Team All-American was a unanimous All-BIG EAST First Team selection in 2015 and earned second team honors as a redshirt sophomore in 2014.
Repeating as BIG EAST Midfielder of the Year, Baptiste is 530-for-777 (.682) in his career from the faceoff dot, including 220-of-321(.685) in 2016. Baptiste has double-digit faceoff wins in all 32 of his collegiate games, 15+ faceoff wins in 23 career games (nine in 2016) and 20+ faceoff wins in eight career games (four in 2016). The 2015 USILA First Team All-America selection is first in active faceoff winning percentage (.682), fifth in active faceoff wins (530) and first in ground balls per game (8.41). In 2015, Baptiste set the record for faceoff wins by a freshman at 310, a mark that was also good for fourth in the NCAA Division I single-season record books. Baptiste was the only FOGO and one of three sophomores named to the 25-member Tewaaraton nominee list last week.
Sharing Midfielder of the Year honors with Baptiste, Curran finished the regular season with a Villanova team high of 23 assists and 21 goals for 44 points. He also grabbed 29 groundballs and six caused turnover. During Villanova’s game against Georgetown this season, Curran had a career high seven points, three goals and four assists. In his career he has 70 groundballs, 64 goals, 53 assists, and 117 points. Curran helped lead the Wildcats to a top 20 ranking for 12 of the 13 weeks. Curran has been a part of the All-BIG EAST first and second teams three-straight years.
In his first season with Denver, Ready has made 120 saves (9.23/game), kept a goals against average of 8.93 and is saving shots at a .533 clip en route to a 12-1 record. The freshman and BIG EAST Goalkeeper of the Year made 13 saves in the season opener at Air Force, 14 in Denver’s 9-8 win at then-No. 2/1 Notre Dame and 16 in Denver’s first of two blizzard games at then-No. 16/18 Villanova. Ready was named the USILA/Lids Team Sports Division I National Defensive Player of the Week after his 14-save performance at Notre Dame on March 13. He earned BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Week honors twice, including the first week of the season.
Georgetown’s Bucaro wins the league’s first Freshman of the Year honor as he split time between attack and midfield, pacing the Hoyas offense throughout the season with a team-leading 31 points. He finished second on the team with 18 goals and dished out a team-high 13 assists, while earning BIG EAST Weekly honor roll twice. Bucaro had five multi-goal games this season, including three with three goals. Bucaro was voted to the 2016 BIG EAST Second Team.
A winner of now 20 conference championships since beginning his tenure at Princeton in 1988 (29 seasons), Tierney and his staff were named BIG EAST Coaching Staff of the Year on Tuesday, Tierney’s third conference coach of the year award in his seven seasons in charge of the Pioneers, but first since Denver joined the league in 2014. Denver’s 2016 regular season title is its sixth since Tierney’s arrival in 2010 (three ECAC, three BIG EAST). Tierney enters the 2016 BIG EAST Championships with a 367-119 overall record (32nd season), a 95-26 record at Denver (seventh season) and 26 double-digit win seasons.
Cannizzaro, Curran and Baptiste were all unanimous selections to the BIG EAST First Team, which also consisted of seven total players from Denver (same as 2015), two from Marquette, Villanova and Providence and one from St. John’s and Georgetown. Of the 15-member first team, nine players, including Cannizzaro, Curran and Baptiste, were unanimous selections. A unanimous selection is decided by five votes. The first team consists of four attackers, three midfielders (all unanimous), three defenders, two goalkeepers, a faceoff specialist and two long stick midfielders.
For the first team attackers, three of the four: Cannizzaro, Marquette junior Ryan McNamara and Villanova junior Jake Froccaro were unanimous. St. John’s redshirt senior Eric DeJohn was an at-large selection to the first team. DeJohn is a repeat first-teamer from 2015, like Cannizzaro. McNamara was BIG EAST Player of the Week on March 28 and on the weekly honor roll six times. He led Marquette, the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament, with 3.20 goals per game, 5.00 points per game in league play. Froccaro was BIG EAST Offensive Player of the Week twice and had 10 points with eight goals against Penn State on Feb. 27. Froccaro, a Tewaaraton Award Nominee, was second behind Cannizzaro in goals per game with 3.00. DeJohn led the conference in assists per game (1.91) over the course of 11 games. In league play, he was second behind Cannizzaro in goals per game (3.25).
The All-BIG EAST First Team midfield was completely unanimous with Curran and the Denver duo of juniors, Tyler Pace and Zach Miller. In league play, Pace averaged 1.62 assists per game, third in the conference. Pace had 38 points for the year with 17 goals, 21 assists. Miller was third in scoring for the Pioneers with 37 points on 19 goals, 18 assists.
For the three defenders, BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Year Byrnes leads an impressive trio that includes Denver junior Christian Burgdorf, the 2015 BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Year and Providence junior Jarrod Neumann, both unanimous selections. Burgdorf collected 29 ground balls, 13 in league play helping Denver to a 12-1 season with only 118 goals scored against them. Neumann collected 39 ground balls with 17 caused turnovers.
The BIG EAST First Team had a tie for goalkeeper votes as Providence’s Tate Boyce joins Ready on the honor list. Boyce averaged 11.53 saves per game overall, 9.60 in league action. Boyce had an 7-8 record between the Pipes for the Friars. With a .531 save percentage.
Additionally, there was a tie for the LSM position on the first team with the votes split between Denver sophomore Sean Mayle and Georgetown junior Charlie Ford. Ford was on the All-BIG EAST Second Team in 2015. Mayle collected 38 ground balls for the Pioneers with a goal and an assist. Ford scooped up 30 ground balls and caused nine turnovers.
Baptiste was the coaches’ selection at the specialist position, a unanimous pick on all ballots.
Making up the All-BIG EAST Second Team was Denver senior attacker Jack Bobzien; Georgetown freshman Bucaro and grad student midfielder Joe Bucci; grad student defenseman B.J. Grill, sophomore goalkeeper Cole Blazer, senior attackman Conor Gately, sophomore faceoff specialist and midfielder Zachary Melillo and SSDM Jacob Richard from Marquette; Providence senior attackman Will Mazzone and senior midfielder Mike Perettine; redshirt senior midfielder James Bonanno and sophomore attacker Jason DeBenedictis from St. John’s and freshman midfielder Joey Froccaro, junior attacker Devin McNamara and senior defender John Moderski from Villanova.
The BIG EAST All-Conference teams and regular season awards are voted on by the league’s head coaches. Ballots cannot be cast for their own players.. The All-BIG EAST First Team is calculated by position and consists of three attack players, three midfielders, three defenders, a goalkeeper, long-stick midfielder and a specialty player. The All-BIG EAST Second Team includes votes for a goalkeeper, LSM, specialty player and 10 at-large players. In the 2016 voting, there was a tie for first team all-conference goalkeeper and LSM. No LSM is represented on the second team.
The 2016 BIG EAST Championship Presented by Jeep comes to Denver’s Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium for the first time with two semifinal contests on Thursday and the championship game Saturday. No. 2 seed Marquette and No. 3 seed Villanova will face off in the first semifinal game starting at 6:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. local. The top-seeded Denver Pioneers will battle the No. 4 seed Providence at 9 p.m. ET/7 p.m. local. Both semifinal games will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network. Championship Saturday will air on FS2 with the game time scheduled for 4:30 p.m. ET/2:30 p.m. local.
The champion earns an automatic berth to the 2016 NCAA Championships, with a selection show on May 8 at 9 p.m. on ESPNU.
2016 Men’s Lacrosse All-BIG EAST Team and Awards
Offensive Player of the Year
Connor Cannizzaro, Denver, Jr., A
Defensive Players of the Year
Liam Byrnes, Marquette, Grad Student, D
Co-Midfielders of the Year
Trevor Baptiste, Denver, So., FOS
Jack Curran, Villanova, Sr., M
Goalkeeper of the Year
Alex Ready, Denver, Fr.
Freshman of the Year
Daniel Bucaro, Georgetown, Fr., A
Coaching Staff of the Year
Denver (Head Coach Bill Tierney)
All-BIG EAST First Team *
Tate Boyce, Providence, GK
Alex Ready, Denver, GK
Connor Cannizzaro, Denver, Jr. A ^
Ryan McNamara, Marquette, Jr., A ^
Eric DeJohn, St. John’s, RS-Sr., A (at-large selection)
Jake Froccaro, Villanova, Jr., A ^
Zach Miller, Denver, Jr., M ^
Tyler Pace, Denver, Jr., M ^
Jack Curran, Villanova, Sr., M ^
Christian Burgdorf, Denver, Jr., D ^
Liam Byrnes, Marquette, Grad., D
Jarrod Neumann, Providence, Jr., D^
Trevor Baptiste, Denver, So., FOS ^
Sean Mayle, Denver, So., LSM
Charlie Ford, Georgetown, Jr., LSM
All-BIG EAST Second Team **
(listed alphabetically)
Cole Blazer, Marquette, So., GK
Jack Bobzien, Denver, Sr., A
James Bonanno, St. John’s, RS-Sr., M
Daniel Bucaro, Georgetown, Fr., A
Joe Bucci, Georgetown, Grad., M
Jason DeBenedictis, St. John’s, So., A
Joey Froccaro, Villanova, Jr., M
Conor Gately, Marquette, Sr., A
B.J. Grill, Marquette, Grad., D
Devin McNamara, Villanova, Jr., A
Will Mazzone, Providence, Sr., A
Zachary Melillo, Marquette, So., FOS
John Moderski, Villanova, Sr., D
Mike Perettine, Providence, Sr., M
Jacob Richard, Marquette, Sr., SSDM
* - due to a tie in voting, there are two first team goalkeepers and two longstick midfielders making up a 15-member all-conference team. There will be no LSM represented on the All-BIG EAST second team
^ - denotes unanimous selection
** - there are 15 members on the All-BIG EAST Second Team due to a tie in the at-large voting process