ALBANY, N.Y. – The University at Albany men's lacrosse program hosts Stony Brook on Saturday in the final regular-season meeting between the teams as America East rivals.
 
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Game Info
Saturday, March 26 vs. Stony Brook (1:00 pm)
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Leading the Pack

• UAlbany is 1-1 at home this season; Stony Brook is 0-1 in true road games, and 2-1 in games away from LaValle Stadium
• Jake Piseno and Tanner Hay rank first and second in the America East in caused turnovers, respectively
• UAlbany commits penalties at the lowest rate in the America East
• UAlbany is 21-12 overall against Stony Brook since the 2001 season
• Stony Brook is ineligible for participation in the 2022 America East Tournament
• Saturday's game is the first leg of a doubleheader with the women's program, who will host Binghamton on John Fallon Field at 4:00 pm

Scouting Stony Brook
Stony Brook leads the America East in the conference standings at 5-3 overall, and shares a 1-0 league record with Binghamton and Vermont.  The Seawolves started the season 4-0 but have dropped three of their last four.  Stony Brook fell to then-#4 Rutgers 17-16, followed by a three-point loss at then-#16 Brown.  Most recently, the Seawolves were defeated by unranked Syracuse, 14-9.  Stony Brook leads the America East in scoring offense and ranks third in scoring defense.  The Seawolves' Dylan Panllonetti shares the league lead in total goals with 21, and ranks second with 32 total points.  Stony Brook has four players who rank within the America East's top-10 players in scoring, and have the conference's leader in faceoff percentage in Renz Conlon.  Stony Brook has won the last two in the series, but UAlbany is 11-3 overall against Stony Brook at home since the 2001 season.  The 33 games in the series against Stony Brook are the Great Danes' most against a single opponent since the 2001 season.
 
Last Time vs. Stony Brook
Ranked #19 at gametime, UAlbany fell at Stony Brook in their lone 2021 meeting 16-10 on the road.  Stony Brook opened the first quarter outscoring UAlbany 6-2, before the Great Danes rallied to trail 7-5 at halftime.  The Seawolves had outshot UAlbany 13-5 in the first quarter.  After halftime, Stony Brook narrowly outscored UAlbany in the third quarter, 3-2, before doubling-up the Great Danes in the fourth, 6-3.  Tehoka Nanticoke and Logan Tucker each scored four goals for UAlbany, while Jakob Patterson recorded four assists.
 
Last Time Out
UAlbany hosted its 2022 America East opener against Binghamton last weekend, falling to the Bearcats 18-10.  It was the first loss against Binghamton since 2011, and the first loss at home in the series since 2004.  Binghamton scored the first three goals of the game but UAlbany closed within two at halftime after trailing by as many as five in the first half.  Binghamton, however, righted the ship, and outscored UAlbany 11-5 in the second half to claim their fourth victory in the series since 2002.
 
Around the America East
Six of the conference's seven active teams have opened league play for the 2022 season.  Stony Brook, Binghamton, and Vermont notched victories over UMass Lowell, UAlbany, and NJIT, respectively.  The Seawolves remain in first place by virtue of their 5-3 overall record, and also remain the only team in the conference with a winning record.  Binghamton is second at 3-4, followed by Vermont at 3-6.  UMBC, yet to play its conference opener, is 2-3 overall, followed by UAlbany at 1-5.  UMass Lowell and NJIT remain winless at 0-7 each.
 
Saturday's America East Games

• Canisius at Vermont, 12:00 pm
• UMBC at Binghamton, 1:00 pm
• Stony Brook at UAlbany, 1:00 pm
• UMass Lowell at NJIT, 7:00 pm 

Familiar Foes
The 2022 game against UMass was the latest in the Great Danes longest-running rivalry of their Division I era.  UAlbany and UMass have played every season since 2001, the longest uninterrupted streak among UAlbany opponents.  Since reclassifying to Division I, the only opponents UAlbany has played more frequently are Stony Brook (33), UMBC (26), Vermont (25), and Hartford (24), all America East conference opponents.  Since their first meeting as Division I opponents in 2001, UAlbany is 13-9 against UMass.
 
Approaching 200
Five games into the 2022 season, his 22nd at the helm, UAlbany men's lacrosse head coach has won 195 career games, leaving him five away from the 200-win milestone.  Marr has averaged more than nine wins per season in his career, and has led UAlbany to nine America East championship titles.  Marr's ranks ninth among active Division I head coaches, just behind Penn State's Jeff Tambroni's 203.
 
Great Danes on the Sidelines
In Wednesday's game against Siena, seven of the eight coaches on both sidelines come from UAlbany's program, and all eight have ties to the University.  Head Coach Scott Marr employs three UAlbany men's lacrosse alumni on his staff, Merrick Thomson, John Maloney, and Steve Kunz.  On the opposite sideline, Siena head coach Liam Gleason and his three staff members, Tim Cox, Derrick Eccles, and Mike Russell, all earned undergraduate degrees from UAlbany.  Additionally, all seven coaches played for Coach Marr during their undergraduate careers.  Gleason was also an assistant under Marr before accepting his current position at Siena.
 
Rookie of the Week
Jacob Moran claimed the Great Danes' first conference weekly awards of 2022, winning the America East Rookie of the Week honors for Week 3.  Moran scored a team-high four goals at Drexel in the second game of the season, including three in the first half, the first four goals of his career.
 
Family Affair
Saturday's game at Drexel will feature two members of the Marr family on opposing sidelines.  Scott Marr has been head coach of UAlbany for the last 21 years, while his son, Kyle, is a volunteer assistant at Drexel working with the faceoff and goalkeepers.  Both Scott and Kyle played their college careers at Johns Hopkins, but Saturday will be the first time they will meet for a game, since Johns Hopkins and UAlbany did not play while Kyle attended.
 
Captains
The Great Danes selected three players to serve the team as captains in 2022: seniors Corey Yunker, Zane Sands, and Tanner Hay.  Hay and Sands are defenders and Yunker is UAlbany's top returning scorer from 2021.
 
Picked Third
After making a return appearance in the America East title game in 2021, the UAlbany men's lacrosse team was picked to finish third in the 2022 America East Preseason Coaches' Poll.  UAlbany was picked just behind Stony Brook, and just ahead of UMBC, with just two points separating the three teams in the poll.  Defending champion Vermont was the unanimous favorite, earning 36 points and all possible first-place votes.  UMBC, defending regular-season champions, secured the last remaining first place vote and 25 overall points.  In between, Stony Brook landed 27 points and UAlbany earned 26.
 
Schedule Strength
Not one to shy away from a tough schedule, Coach Marr's 22nd year features yet another gauntlet of top-ranked opponents.  Seven of UAlbany's games feature matchups against teams ranked in the preseason top-20.  The Great Danes open the season at preseason #15 Cornell, before a second-straight road game against preseason #18 Drexel.  A trip to preseason #2 and 2021 national runner-up Maryland follows, before UAlbany hosts preseason #12 Syracuse for the first time in program history.  The game against the Orange precedes a home game against preseason #17 Vermont in a rematch of the 2021 America East title game.  Finally, UAlbany closes the season against two ranked Ivy League opponents, at preseason #7 Yale and then at home against preseason #11 Penn, the latter of which is the first-ever meeting between the programs.
 
Coaching Tree
Coach Marr's extensive coaching tree expanded once more in 2021, when Robert Morris hired Craig McDonald '08 as their head men's lacrosse coach.  McDonald was a four-year member of Marr's program, appearing in 61 games while scoring three goals and recording three assists with 148 ground balls.  He was part of the 2007 team that went 15-3 and advanced to the NCAA Quarterfinals.
 
PLL Year Four
The Premier Lacrosse League announced on February 8 that the University at Albany would once again serve as a host for one of the league's weekend slates.  Additionally, the league announced that UAlbany would host the 2022 opening weekend, a change from the campus' traditional window of August.
 
First Times
2022 will feature a series of firsts for the UAlbany men's lacrosse program.  Most prominently, the annual matchup against Syracuse will be played in Albany for the first time after playing the first 19 games in the series in Syracuse.  Syracuse was originally scheduled to visit UAlbany in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down collegiate sports.  The game was rescheduled to this season, with new Syracuse head coach Gary Gait honoring the agreement originally made under former head coach John Desko.  Additionally, UAlbany will play Ivy League opponent Penn for the first time in program history this season, in the regular-season finale at Casey Stadium.
 
Peer Vote
As voted by its players, the Premier Lacrosse League counted down the top-50 players in the league following the 2021 season.  Goalkeeper Blaze Riorden, 2021 MVP and league champion with the Chaos, was voted as the best player in the PLL following his spectacular 2021 season.  And in his first year in the league following the MLL merger, Lyle Thompson was picked third, giving the Great Danes two players in the top-three.
 
PLL Champions
Two former Great Danes, Blaze Riorden and Troy Reh, were crowned 2021 Premier Lacrosse League champions when the Chaos defeated the Whipsnakes.  The game was a rematch of the 2020 title game where the Whipsnakes came out on top.  Riorden led the Chaos to their redemptive title behind an MVP and Goalkeeper of the Year season, while also earning MVP honors for the championship game.
 
Humanitarian Efforts
Lyle Thompson, in his first year in the Premier Lacrosse League following the merger with Major League Lacrosse, was named winner of the 2021 Welles Crowther Humanitarian Award, recognizing his efforts in raising awareness about atrocities committed against Indigenous youth in residential schools in Canada.  Thompson's efforts were also featured in an issue of Sports Illustrated.
 
Super Sixes
Five UAlbany men's lacrosse alumni competed for the Iroquois National Senior Men's Team in October at the World Lacrosse Super Sixes Tournament.  The five Great Danes on the roster were Lyle Thompson, Ty Thompson, Jakob Patterson, Ron John, and Tehoka Nanticoke.  Also competing that weekend was UAlbany women's lacrosse assistant coach Taylor Frink with the Iroquois National Senior Women's Team.
 
2023 NCAA Quarterfinals
On October 14, 2020, the NCAA announced among its selections for over 450 championship sites for the 2023-26 seasons that the University at Albany was awarded hosting responsibilities for a quarterfinal bracket in the 2023 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament.  It will be the first time the Great Danes host a quarterfinal, having previously hosted three First Round games, in 2007, 2017, and 2018.
 
PLL Year Three
UAlbany hosted its second weekend of the PLL summer schedule in 2021.  After a successful first year, the Great Danes were awarded hosting privileges for year two, before the format was changed to account for the COVID-19 pandemic.  The league made its triumphant return to Albany in 2021, playing six games over three days in Tom & Mary Casey Stadium.
 
Next: UAlbany visits UMass Lowell on April 2.