After a disappointing season in 2022, the Quinnipiac men’s lacrosse team promised to turn over a new leaf this year. Eight games into its conference schedule, it’s faring better than before.

The Bobcats entered their conference matches on equal footing, with two wins over UMass Lowell and then-No. 13 Brown, and two losses to Bryant and Merrimack.

Quinnipiac kicked off MAAC play strongly, taking a win over Canisius by a tight score of 13-12 off of a last-minute goal scored by senior attacker Jake Tellers.

Aside from the definitive win over the River Hawks, 21-12, every other Bobcats win has been decided by one goal, aside from the two games over Siena and Marist, which both ended 14-12.

While the Bobcats finished last season 2-11, right now they sit on a 50%-win rate, 6-6 in the season and 4-4 in the MAAC. 

“We’re four and four in the MAAC, we still control our destiny here, and we’re willing to accept that battle,” head coach Mason Poli said.

Multiple key players from previous seasons returned to the Bobcats roster for 2023, including graduate student goaltender Nick DiMuccio, who is averaging 13.20 saves per game, with a total of 162 saves thus far.

Graduate student midfielder Demitri George, who was the 2021 and 2022 winner of the MAAC Faceoff Specialist of the Year Award, isn’t faring so well this season going 188 for 332 on faceoffs, as opposed to the previous season in which he finished with 115 for 155.

Senior attack John DeLucia is leading the team both in total points and goals scored. DeLucia, who’s also one of the four team captains, has scored 27 goals and 15 assists totaling 42 points in 12 games this season.

Not far behind him is junior midfielder Steven Germain, who has 20 goals and 37 total points, and closing out the top three is junior attack Dylan Donnery, who has 33 total points with 24 goals.

While the team had a lot of their top scorers return from last year, the addition of 12 new freshmen posed uncertainty about what performances they could give. Players like freshman attack Justin Robbert answered those questions fast.

Robbert has played in all 12 games this season so far, recording 25 points, with 11 goals out of 22 attempts and 14 assists. The Centereach, New York, native averages .667 shots-on-goal percentage. 

“We had to throw him to the fire early, not somebody we expected to get on the field this early in his career and this often,” Poli said. “But he’s a senior, he meshes well with Dylan (Donnery) and (John) DeLucia down there so it’s a great trio.”

Robbert is not the only freshman on the field getting recognition from his head coach.

“We’ve got guys like Luke Hendricks, Chase Young and Tommy Andruzzi, those guys are playing like veterans and as the season goes on we put them more in play and they keep accepting the challenge,” Poli said.

The Bobcats have one game left in their MAAC schedule, for which they return to their den on April 22 to face LIU for senior day. Quinnipiac is deadlocked at fourth place in a conference playoff race with three other teams, including the Sharks.

“(The seniors have) done a big job in helping us kind of mow our culture both in the locker room and on the field here and we’re starting to see it,” Poli said.