Navy Sports Central Rewind: The 2004 Navy Men's Lacrosse Team's Season to Remember

Welcome to Navy Sports Central - The Official Podcast of the Navy Sports Nation!

Today, we're going to jump into the Navy Sports Central time machine and revisit the 2004 Navy Men's Lacrosse team's unforgettable season.  This year marks the 20th anniversary of their magical run to the Final Four. And in our Deep Dive segment, you will learn how they bounced back from a disappointing year in 2003 to wind up on the brink of a national championship.

I'll be discussing the key players and highlight three regular season games that shaped this team into one the best that Navy has ever put on the field. Then I'll take you through that heart-stopping win over Princeton in the semifinal, and the classic championship game where the Mids came up agonizingly short against Syracuse.

This was an inspiring team, whose commitment and dedication captured the hearts of college lacrosse fans across the nation. So come along and enjoy the ride with me!

Related Links: 

• Navy Track & Field Sweeps the Patriot League Championships
• Navy  Men's and Women's Swimming & Diving Teams Repeat as Patriot League Champions
• 2004 Navy Men's Lacrosse Statistics

We want your answer to our Question of the Day. Here is the one for this episode:

As of today, there are 9 Navy Men's Lacrosse players who have over 150 points in their careers. How many of them played on the 2004 team that made it to the NCAA Championship game?
A.) 1
B.) 2
C.) 3
D.) 4

You can give us your answer on the Navy Sports Nation Group Facebook page.

Follow Navy Sports Central wherever you get your podcasts:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Podchaser

Check out the Navy Sports Nation group page on Facebook!

Music is provided courtesy of Audio Jungle. Artists featured in order:

• Seven In Music (Intro)
• Alexiaction (Deep Dive)
• Loka Music (Question of the Day Lead In)
• Cinematic Alex (Closeout Music)

Transcript

Karl: 0:14

Hi everybody, my name is Karl Darden and I'd like to welcome and thank all of you for joining us today on Navy Sports Central. I'm your host, and this is the official podcast of the Navy Sports Nation, where we take a deeper dive into Navy sports. It isn't quite officially spring time in Annapolis, but it might as well be, since all the spring sports teams are solid three to four weeks into their seasons. In our update, I'll get you caught up on how the winter sports finished, which included picking up four more Patriot League championships, and you'll be meeting the two athletes who will be tracking in our mid-watch segments over the next few months. Finally, in our deep dive segment, we're going to go back 20 years and revisit that incredible run that the 2004 Navy Men's Cross Team had that put them right on the doorstep of winning their national championship. That was one very special team and I will do my level best to tell their story, so stick around. All right, it is great to have you with us today on Navy Sports Central, whether you are a regular listener or this is your first visit. Thanks for taking the time. Now we're going to go ahead and jump right into things with our sports update and with our winter teams finishing up their seasons, I've got quite a bit to pass along, so let's get started with men's basketball. On balance, I would say the team came out right about where I expected this year. They definitely had the talent to get about nine or ten wins in the Patriot League, but I felt, because they were a young team, closing out some games might be an issue, and it turns out that they finished seven and nine, eight and ten if you include the tournament results. But two of those losses were against Loyola, who the Mids beat in the tournament, and also to Army in overtime. So the team was that close to going nine and seven instead of the other way around. But overall I like where they are as we look ahead to the next couple of years. There are a lot of underclassmen that got quality minutes this year. Besides Austin Benigni, who we've been tracking in our midwatch segment, we've got Donovan Draper, another sophomore, who was a second on the team in scoring with nine and a half points a game, and he was also the team's leading rebounder with just over nine per contest. And then you had a couple of juniors, Lysander Rehnstrom and also Mac McDonald, who were the Mids two most consistent shooters from beyond the arc. So with this bunch of experienced underclassmen coming back, I'm looking forward to seeing if the Mids can get a little bit deeper into the Patriot League tournament next year.

Karl: 2:29

As far as the women's team goes, I thought they had a remarkable season. Remember the Mids just had one win last year, going one and 29, so that had to be really, really tough. But Coach Taylor acknowledged how important the seniors Morganne Andrews, Sam Schofield and Sydne Watts were in getting things turned around. They stayed positive through all that adversity last year and, even though they had a little bit more of a supporting role this season, they were always ready to play and contribute when their number was called. And of course, the two players largely responsible for the Mids' huge improvement were a couple of freshmen. Zanai Barnett- Gay was selected as the Patriot League rookie of the year in what had to be one of the easiest decisions ever made in that category and on top of that her backcourt made Kyah Smith joined Barnett- Gay on the All Rookie team. The Mids ended up going 9-9 in the Patriot League and they had a solid 11-6 record at Alumni Hall. And they had a real shot at beating number two Colgate in the quarterfinals of the Patriot League tournament, but the Raiders experience proved to be the difference in the end. Just like the men, though, the women had a lot of young players get some quality minutes, so I'm looking for them to get a little bit further into the tournament next year.

Karl: 3:31

Now let's move on to wrestling, where the EIWA tournament was just completed. Last year, coach Colott sent five wrestlers to the NCAA championships and he was looking to at least match that number this season. Not only did he do that, but Navy has another regional champion at 141 pounds in Josh Koderhandt. In the final he took on Dylan Chappelle from Bucknell University. After neither wrestler got on the board in the first period, chappelle scored an escape in the second to go up 1-0. Koderhandt came back with a take down midway through the period and then scored a four point near fall to gain a 7-1 advantage. And he picked up four more points on an escape and another take down in the third period, and then he got the riding time point to win the title match by a 12-2 major decision. The other four wrestlers going to the NCAA tournament besides Koderhandt will be Andrew Cerniglia at 165 pounds, Danny Wask at 174, David Key at 184 and Grady Griess in the heavyweight division.

Karl: 4:24

Okay. Next up we have the Rifle team, which capped off an outstanding year by finishing sixth in the NCAA championships that just wrapped up. The top finisher for the mids was Senior Clarissa Layland, who led the team with 1179 points. Sophomore Marleigh Duncan was right behind her with 1175, and rounding out the top five for the mids were Isabella Baldwin, Deontae Hayes and Stephanie Milvain. This was a record setting year for the Rifle team. They broke the program's team scoring mark in all three categories, which are small bore, air rifle and then overall, and they surpassed 4,700 points nine times. And, by the way, that sixth place finish at the NCAA championships was one better than their seeding. They were actually seventh going in. So great job to coach Ante and his team.

Karl: 5:08

The next two teams we're going to take a look at are men's and women's track and field, and the main thing to report there is that both of them repeated as Patriot League champions, which I don't think was a huge surprise to anybody. So what I'm going to do now is just go through all the individual winners. We'll start with the men. First off we have Brahmir Vick, who won both the 60 meter dash and also the 60 meter hurdles. Nathan Kent also picked up a couple of wins. He won the 200 and 400 meter dash and Murphy Smith picked up a win in the 5,000 meter run. Navy also had two relay teams finish first, the four by 400 meter relay team of Nathan Kent, David Walker, Jay Evans and Jacques Guillaume set a meet record, and they were also joined by the distance medley relay team of Luke Nester, Jayshon Dubose, Carson Sloat and Matt Newell. On the field events, Josh Boamah picked up wins in both the weight throw and the shot put, walker Rudisaile won the pole vault and Jordan Payne came out on top in the triple jump.

Karl: 6:05

On the women's side, your winners were Sophia Richter in the 400 meters, Gia Anderson in the 60 meter hurdles, Elena Schroeder picked up a win in the pole vault and Annie Taylor won the indoor heptathlon. The women also won two relays. The four by 800 meter relay was won by Alex Wersinski, Mckenna Brophy, Kayla McGuire and Ellie Abraham, and then Wersinski and Abraham teamed with Katelyn Pepin and Annie Taylor to win the distance medley. And, by the way, that was the fifth straight Patriot League championship for both the men and the women. The men's and women's swimming and diving teams also repeated as Patriot League champions, so I'm really glad I didn't jinx them by having coach Roberts and coach Morrison on before they took place. The women went in fairly comfortable fashion, but the men did have to battle army into the third day and it was actually the divers who gave them the separation they needed to win the meet. Finn Gelbach, George Moore and Blake Shaw swept the three meter event, which meant that the mids four by 400 relay team just needed to finish the race to claim the title. Instead, they went out and won it anyway, setting a meet record in the process. And in case any of you are keeping score out there, that makes it 12th straight Patriot League championships for the women and 22 overall, which is a record. Meanwhile, the men ran their streak of consecutive championships to 20 without a loss. All right, our sports update is complete and coming up next we have our deep dive segment, which you do not want to miss, I think.

Karl: 7:41

For Navy La Crosse fans, 2004 has to rank as one of the most memorable years in the history of the program. The team the mids put on the field that spring was extremely talented and they possessed the kind of chemistry that every coach dreams of. But I think it's fair to say that not too many people, even diehard Navy fans, could have predicted what happened that year. So, to set things up, I think it's best to take a quick look and see how the 2003 season finished up. Richie Mead was entering his ninth season as Navy's head coach. That year, the mids had put together back-to-back eight and five seasons in 2001 and 2002 as members of the East Coast Athletic Conference, and they were looking to build on that so they could punch their ticket to the NCAA tournament. It had been four years since they last qualified, having lost in the first round in 1999.

Karl: 8:24

The 2003 didn't go as expected. The mids got off to a fast start by winning their first three games, and two of those were against ranked opponents number 19 Ohio State and number 9 North Carolina. After that they dropped five of their next six, and four of those losses came to teams ranked in the top 15. Going into their final game of the season against 16th ranked Army, navy was sitting on a five and seven record and any hope of picking up a bid to the NCAA tournament was long gone. Now they did pull things together and beat the Black Knights 12-11 to finish the year at six and seven. That salvaged what many Navy fans viewed as a disappointing season and no doubt there'd be a lot of questions in 2004. The mids were joining the newly formed Patriot League and Coach Mead was heading into his tenth season with only one NCAA appearance. But I think the biggest question on every Navy fans mind was could this team, which looked pretty good on paper, figure out a way to win consistently? Nobody really knew for sure.

Karl: 9:15

So let's go ahead and take a look at that 2004 roster. The first thing you notice is that it wasn't a team that was loaded with seniors. In fact, there were just eight on the 44 man squad and only three of them were in the starting lineup. But those guys were exceptional players and they were surrounded by some outstanding underclassmen. So before we get into some of the season's key games, I wanted to talk about a handful of players who played such a critical role in the team's success, and we'll go ahead and start with the attackman.

Karl: 9:43

First up we have Ian Dingman. He was a sophomore and, at 6'3", 248 pounds, he was a defenseman's nightmare whether he was on the move or parked in front of the crease. In 2003, dingman was second on the team in goals with 17 and in points with 24. Those were pretty decent numbers for a freshman, but, as Navy fans were about to find out, he was just getting started. A big key to Navy's attack was Senior Joe Bossi. He was from Skaneateles, New York, which was about 22 miles southwest of Syracuse. Bossi put up 17 points in 2003, on 12 goals and five assists, and that was just a drop in the bucket compared to what he did in 2004. Next we have John Birsner from Levittown, new York. He was another sophomore and put up some decent numbers as a freshman, also with nine goals and nine assists, but again, this would prove to be another case of you ain't seen nothing yet, because in 2004, Birsner would team up with Dingman and Bossy to form an attack line that produced 151 points.

Karl: 10:41

Navy also had some great scores on their midfield line. Junior Graham Gill was coming off a 21 point season which consisted of 13 goals and eight assists. He would add another 10 goals and two assists to that total in 2004. Senior Ben Bailey was from Memphis, TN, where lacrosse was just starting to catch on At the time. There are only 20 programs in the entire state. Bailey was clearly one of the better players, though, because he put up 14 goals for the mids during his junior year and, just like everyone else I've mentioned so far, he improved on those numbers significantly in 2004.

Karl: 11:11

Finally, I did want to mention the Looney brothers, Brendan, Steve and Bill. Brendan came to Navy to originally to play football, and then he ended up transitioning to lacrosse so he could be on the field with his brothers. His brother, Steve, was a sophomore, and Bill was an incoming freshman. As part of the Mids' new recruiting class. They were both double-digit point producers in 2004, combining for 43 altogether. Navy's interior defense was led by senior Jared Bosanko and a couple of juniors, Mike Felber and Mitch Hendler. The goalkeeper was a sophomore by the name of Matt Russell. These four guys were a big reason why the Mids only gave up an average of seven goals per game, and when the defense is put into clamps on opposing offenses like that, you're gonna pick up quite a few wins.

Karl: 11:50

Okay, those are some of the players you'll be hearing about as we continue, and there will be others that I bring up as we talk about what I consider to be three key games that shape Navy's season. The first of these was against North Carolina. Navy had beaten the Tar Heels 9-8 at home in 2003, but trying to repeat that result in Chapel Hill was not going to be easy. The Mids were unranked and came into the game with a 1-1 record. They beat Marist 14-1 to open the season and then lost the following week to Ohio State 12-9. Unc was ranked fourth in the country and was looking to get back to the NCAA tournament after missing out in 2003.

Karl: 12:22

The Tar Heels struck first on an unassisted goal to make the score 1-0 just 5 minutes into the game, and then 7 seconds later, the score was tied. The Mids controlled the face off and Brendan Looney came up with the ground ball. He quickly found Dingman in the front of the crease and the big man buried the shot to get the Mids on the board. Each team scored once more before the end of the quarter, bringing the count to two goals apiece. And, by the way, pay attention to Navy's ability to score quickly after giving up a goal. You can hear that more than a few times as we go through these games.

Karl: 12:49

In the second quarter, the Mids strung together back to back goals. Graham Gill got the first one and then, 60 seconds later, senior Midfielder Matt Madura followed that up with one of his own. North Carolina did get one of those back a little bit later and the Mids took a 4-3 lead into the locker room at halftime. Two minutes into the third quarter, graham Gill picked up his second goal of the game and with the Mids up by two, the defense is settled in and controlled the next 10 minutes. Then the Navy offense took advantage of a transition opportunity when junior defensive midfielder Clipper Lennon found Dingman for his second goal to the contest. Two more goals were scored in the next 46 seconds, one by each team.

Karl: 13:23

First the UNC climbed back within two goals 40 seconds after Dingman scored and then on the following draw, the Mids' faceoff specialist Chris Posanka got control and sprinted down the field on a fast break. He scored unassisted to give the Mids a 7-4 lead just six seconds into the fourth quarter. But the Tar Heels just would not go away. They strung together three consecutive goals to tie the score. With 8.5 minutes to go in the game. Posanka won the next draw and Steve Looney scooped up the ground ball on the wing. Meanwhile, posanka just kept running towards the goal. Looney hit him with a perfect pass and he fired it past the UNC goalkeeper to put the Mids up 8-7. It stayed that way until Carolina tied the score again with about a minute and a half to go, and then neither team could score the game winner before time ran out. So they went to a 5 minute overtime and just about halfway through Clipper Lennon came up with the ball on another transition opportunity. This time he took it to the cage himself and found the back of the net to give the Mids a huge 9-8 overtime win. Lennon finished the game with three points on two goals and one assist, while Dingman, gale and Posanka also had two goals each.

Karl: 14:21

On defense, coach Meade had a lot of good things to say about sophomore Matt Russell's performance and goal. It was his very first start and he came up with 12 saves to help nail down the win. Taking down the number four ranked Tar Heels gave the Mids a huge boost. They were playing with a lot of confidence and they won their next three games handily by a combined score of 45-19. So by the end of March they were sitting on a 5-1 record. As they traveled up the West Point to take on Army, the Black Knights qualified for the NCAA Tournament in 2003 and they had every intention of going back. A win over the Mids would go a long way towards them achieving that goal.

Karl: 14:56

Both teams really came out swinging to start the game. Dingman and Birsner helped stake the Mids to a 4-1 lead, but Armin rung up three goals in a row to tie the score in the last few minutes of the quarter. Then Graham Gill picked up his second goal to retake the lead, and that's when the floodgates opened. The Navy offense went crazy, scoring seven consecutive goals to close out the half, and their defense shut Armin out completely. In the second quarter, the mids continued adding to their lead with three more scores early in the third to go up 14-4, before the Black Knights finally managed to stop the bleeding with one goal. Navy answered with two more late in the third, followed by two more in the fourth, and that pretty much did it. Armin did tack on a handful of garbage goals at the end, but when the horn sounded they were on the wrong end of an 18-10 beatdown. Dingman and Burschner led the scoring barrage with three goals and three assists each. That's basically a hat trick on goal to hand assists. And then Joe Bossi added a hat trick of his own plus an assist. Graham Gill had a couple of goals and one assist himself.

Karl: 15:50

It was a truly dominant performance against a pretty good Army team, and the one thing people began to realize was that Navy could beat teams in any number of different ways. Usually, when opponents took the field against them, they figured out being involved in a real slugfest and a pretty low scoring game. But this team was different. There was a lot more flow to their offense and any attackmen or midfielder they had out there was a threat to score. That made them very, very dangerous. And two weeks after beating Army, the best team in the country found out just how dangerous Navy really was.

Karl: 16:21

The University of Maryland had one of the elite college lacrosse programs in all of Division I, and that goes for both the men and the women. The Terrapins had a standing reservation at the NCAA tournament every year, it seemed. In 2003, they made it to the Final Four before they were beaten by the University of Virginia, who went on to defeat Johns Hopkins in the title game. Now, by the middle of the 2004 season, the Terps are undefeated at 8-0 and ranked number one in the country. The week prior to welcoming Navy to College Park, they had smoked defending champion Virginia 11-2, so they were feeling pretty confident that they could keep their unbeaten streak going.

Karl: 16:53

The Mids thought otherwise. Joe Bossi and Ben Bailey got the offense going early with a goal apiece, putting them up 2-0. Maryland cut the lead to 1 on an unassisted goal, but the Mids came right back thanks to Bossi's quick reaction. Team-mate Adam Real took a shot that the Maryland goalkeeper couldn't quite control and Bossi quickly scooped up the rebound and jammed it past him to give the Mids a 3-1 lead. The team's traded scores before the Terps tied the game with back-to-back goals. The second one came when Navy was two men down. Right before the half John Bursner scored off and assist by Clipper Lennon. So going into halftime the Mids had a one-goal lead. The only problem was there were still 30 minutes of lacrosse left to play.

Karl: 17:29

Maryland didn't waste any time at all tying the game coming out of the locker room. They scored just a minute into the second half, but with just under 5 minutes to go in the quarter the Navy offense scored four consecutive goals that take a 9-5 lead. He got things started when he fired in a shot underhanded on a man-up opportunity. And then Gill got the next one by catching a missed shot by John Bursner on the run and he put it past the goalie before he could get his bearings. Finally, dingman picked up the last two goals, which are his team leading 22nd and 23rd of the season. The defense did the rest and the Mids walked off the field with the program defining 9-6 win. It was their first ever against a top-ranked team. From there, navy pretty much rolled through the rest of the season. They finished undefeated in the Patriot League and the only game they dropped the rest of the way was a 10-9 decision to Johns Hopkins. But despite that, the team had found the chemistry that was missing in 2003. And after winning the Patriot League championship, the Mids received an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Karl: 18:23

Okay, we're going to go ahead and take a short break now, but before we do that, I did want to give you all a couple of ways to stay up to date on Navy Sports. The first is to join the Navy Sports Nation group Facebook page. I've got a link to that in the show notes. Just click on it, answer a couple of questions and you'll be good to go. The second way takes even less time. Just hit the follow button. On whichever platform you're listening to this podcast right now. It can be Apple Podcasts, spotify, iheart Radio, it doesn't matter. Once you do that, every episode will be downloaded to your directory when it's released and you can listen to it whenever you're ready. So please consider becoming a member of our group and you can actually tap that follow button right now to show your support for the podcast. I'm looking forward to having you join us. We'll be right back. Thanks for staying with us on Navy Sports Central, Karl Darden here with you, and today we are celebrating the 2004 Men's Lacrosse team. 20 years ago, they put together a season Navy fans will never forget, and they came within an eyelash of winning the national championship.

Karl: 19:33

We left off before the break, with the Mids having earned a trip to the NCAA tournament after winning the Patriot League title In the first round. They faced the University of Pennsylvania in Annapolis on what turned out to be a very humid afternoon. In fact, neither team was particularly sharp early, but the Navy offense finally settled in halfway through the second quarter and took a 4-1 lead at the half, after the Quakers made it 4-2 early. In the third, joe Bossi just took over. He scored 3 goals in less than 4 minutes to put the Mids up 7-2, and from there they cruised to an 11-5 win. Bossi finished with 4 goals and Dingman and Gill had 2 apiece. And the Navy defense played extremely well, limiting the Quakers to just 1 goal in the fourth quarter.

Karl: 20:15

And now it's on to the quarterfinals. There they faced a very tough Cornell team, and this wound up being a low-scoring defensive battle. Matt Russell had a terrific afternoon between the pipes. He had a total of 12 saves, while Dingman, gil and bossy accounted for five navy goals. The Mids came out on top six to five, and that put them in the final four against Princeton, a team that had won five national championships in the 90s under coaching legend Bill Tierney. On paper it looked like it was going to be a tough game, and that's exactly the way it played out.

Karl: 20:44

I recall watching this game on ESPN on Memorial Day weekend. My stomach was pretty much in knots the whole time. The Mids did jump out to a 2-0 lead, so they clearly didn't have the same early game jitters as I did. Adam Reel opened the scoring about five minutes in, and Graham Gill added another one a few minutes later. The Tigers didn't blink, though. They scored back-to-back goals to tie the game with three minutes to go in the first quarter, and, as a matter of fact, those were the first two shots the Princeton offense had taken. Gill did pick up his second goal about a minute later, and Navy began the second quarter with a 3-2 lead.

Karl: 21:15

One thing I did want to mention is that there was no shot clock in 2004. That wouldn't become part of the game for another 15 years, and back in 04 the team controlling the face-off had 10 seconds to get the ball across midfield. Once they did that and advanced it into the box, they could hold on to the ball for the rest of the game, in theory, as long as they kept on attacking the goal. If the ref determined that the offense was stalling, they got put on a 30-second shot clock, but most of the teams were pretty good at avoiding that. Anyway, princeton took a more deliberate approach when they got the ball early in the second quarter. Their plan was to slow down the Navy offense, and one way to do that was to limit their possessions. So the Tigers wound up holding on to the ball for five minutes before they finally scored to tie the game at three with just over ten minutes left to go in the half.

Karl: 21:57

Now, as I mentioned earlier, one of Navy's strengths the whole season was their ability to create opportunities off the draw. They could score within seconds following an opponent's goal, which is a great way to stop a team's momentum, and that's what happened. Once Princeton pulled even again, it took the Mids just 18 seconds to answer with not just one but two goals, and both came courtesy of Ben Bailey. The first was unassisted. After Navy control to draw, they won the next one as well, and Bailey scored again off an assist by Bill Looney. That made the score of 5-3 was just a minute to go before half time, princeton did add one more goal before the second quarter ran out, so they began the second half down five to four.

Karl: 22:34

Now the third quarter was tight. The Tigers tied the score at the 9-44 mark and Russell had a couple of keys saved to keep things. Even before. The Mids strung together a couple of back-to-back goals. In the last minute and a half, bossy broke the tie with his 42nd goal of the season and then Bill Looney rocketed a shot past the Princeton goalie from ten yards out to extend the Navy lead to two.

Karl: 22:54

Going into the fourth quarter, princeton scored early to cut it to one and they almost tied it a couple minutes later, but the shot ricocheted off the left post and went straight to midfielder Bucky Morris. He got the fast break going, finding Dingman as he sprinted up the field. The big guy located Jon Bursner on the left side, about nine yards out, and hit him with a perfect pass, and Bursner buried the shot in the back of the net to give the Mids an 8-6 lead. Now there were just eight and a half minutes away from advancing to their first NCAA final since 1975. It wasn't going to be easy, though. Princeton scored with just under five minutes left to make it 8-7, and after winning another face off, navy got a decent look and put the ball on the cage. But the Tigers goalie made a great stop and they came down the field with a chance to tie the game. A bad pass resulted in a critical turnover, but the Mids were unable to clear the ball. A deflection redirected it right back to their own goal and Russell was lucky to get control after diving and beating the Princeton player to it. Then Coach Mead called the timeout, with 45 seconds left to set up the final sequence.

Karl: 23:48

When the teams took the field, the Tigers pulled their goalkeeper to give them an extra player to defend against the Navy clear. The Mids worked the ball around until Graham Gill found himself with an opportunity to ice the game with an open net goal, but incredibly, the ball bounced off the right post and went out of bounds. Princeton still had 33 seconds left to try and force overtime. They got the ball into the offensive zone and called timeout with 21 seconds left to play and, believe me, that was the longest 21 seconds of lacrosse I'd ever witnessed. The Tigers calmly looked for their opportunity and got what they were looking for. The shot came from point blank range, but Matt Russell just had some crazy instincts in these situations. Princeton attackman Peter Trombino took the shot just four yards away and Russell stopped it cold. Then he lobbed a high arcing pass down the field as time ran out, the Mids had just punched their ticket to the championship game.

Karl: 24:34

There wasn't a lot of time to celebrate, though. Waiting for them on the other side of the bracket was Syracuse, and they were no strangers to the tournament. The Orange had made it to the championship game in three of the previous four years, winning the title in 2000 and 2002. And they were playing some of their best lacrosse, going into the 2004 tournament having taken out number one seed Johns Hopkins in the semifinals.

Karl: 24:55

The game was a back and forth affair from the start, with neither team having more than a two goal advantage. The Mids got on the board first in a man up situation, when Ben Bailey scooped up a ball on a pass intended for Dingman and sent it past Syracuse goalkeeper. The Orange came right back scoring two straight goals to go up two to one with about 10 minutes left in the first quarter. The Mids pulled even. A little over a minute later, sophomore Tackmann-Taylor Harris found some open space in front of the crease and the Syracuse defense was slow to react. Harris took a feed from Adam Reel and quickly got off his shot to the left side of the cage, scoring high to low. The two teams then traded goals to end the first quarter tied up at four. The Mids picked up their third goal when Steve Looney found his brother Billy, whose bounce shot went right over the Syracuse goalies left shoulder and got just under the crossbar.

Karl: 25:36

After the Orange scored their fourth goal, Graham Gill got the Mids even again. With three seconds left in the quarter, he created just enough space to get a pass from Birsner, who was behind the cage, and quick-sticked it into the lower right corner. After the first 15 minutes it was pretty clear that this game was going to be a battle all the way to the end. Chris Pieczonka who was absolutely amazing on face-offs the entire tournament won another draw. To start the second quarter, steve Looney scooped up the ground ball and got it back to Pieczonka, who found Bossi cutting in from the right side. Bossi faked a shot, getting the goalie to commit, and scored easily to put the Mids up by one. That goal got Syracuse's attention because they went on to score three straight in a span of four minutes to take a two-goal lead at 7-5.

Karl: 26:15

The Mids got back to within one with just under six minutes to go in the half on a man-up goal by Dingman. Birsner fed him with a beautiful no-look pass that was right on his stick. Dingman didn't even wind up, he just flicked it past the goalie. Then, with less than a minute to go in a half, Dingman drove hard from behind the right side of the cage and drew a double team. As he prepared to shoot from about five yards out. Seeing the slide, he passed the ball to Ben Horn who was camped out on the left side of the crease. The goalie could not react in time and Horn, with another quick stick, put a shot past the goalie on the left side and the half ended with both teams tied at 7.

Karl: 26:46

After trading goals to open a third quarter, another offensive burst from the Orange put them up 10-8. They scored twice in less than a minute and held the Mids scoreless the rest of the quarter. The Navy offense found a nice rhythm to start the fourth quarter, taking advantage of another man-up opportunity. This time it was Bursner from behind the goal, finding Horn with what was basically a no-look alley-oop pass. Horn went airborne to get it and it was out of his stick before he even landed. That made the score 10-9. They scored again two minutes later when Dingman hit Bursner with a beautiful feed after drawing another double team. It was almost the exact same look as the assist Dingman had to Horn in the first half.

Karl: 27:19

Then, with 10 minutes to go in the game, the Mids took the lead on a goal by Bossi that fit through the tiniest of windows, beating the Syracuse goalkeeper on the left side just above the hip, and there couldn't have been more than about 10 inches between him and the pipe. So here's where things stood. The Mids now led 11-10, with 9-54 to go, but there is something worth noting before we continue. At some point either in the third quarter or very early into fourth, Navy goalie Matt Russell injured his shoulder. It was later reported that he had dislocated it. Anyway, keep that in mind moving forward, because Syracuse scored the game-time goal at about the 9-minute mark, after two Navy penalties put them two men down and then, coming off the timeout with 8-01 left, Russell finally came out of the game for good. He was just in too much pain.

Karl: 28:02

Colin Finnegan, a freshman who'd only seen 55 minutes of action all year, was the guy who replaced him. It was a tough situation to walk into, but the Navy offense did its best to take the pressure off of him. As it turns out, it was Finnegan who was partly responsible for the Mids' next goal. After a terrific defensive play by Hendler to strip Syracuse attackman Mike Powell of the ball, he got it to Finnegan, who found Clipper Lennon flying down the middle of the field. Finnegan hit him with a perfect pass and Lennon kept right on going, ripping a shot past the goalie from about 12 yards out to give the Mids a 12-11 lead. Now there was just 5 minutes 39 seconds left to play in the game. Unfortunately, the Orange tied it less than a minute later and then took the lead about 90 seconds after that.

Karl: 28:41

Pieczonka won another draw, but Dingman couldn't convert, and the Mids did get the ball back, but the Syracuse defense came up with a ground ball that led to a 3-1 fast break. Powell scored with about a minute left to give the Orange a 14-12 lead. It still wasn't over yet, though. Pieczonka won yet another draw and got the ball to Dingman behind the goal, and he just overpowered his defender on the left side and gave himself just enough of an angle to fire off a shot that I'm not even sure the goalie saw. It was 14-13 and there was 40 seconds left. I didn't even need to watch the video to recall the next sequence. It has been tattooed in my brain for the last 20 years. Pieczonka won the draw again big surprise there and beat everyone to the ground ball. He was sprinting toward the goal, and just as he took his shot, a Syracuse defender, dove and, got just enough of his stick to send it wide right, and because Bossy was starting his cut towards the cage from the right to be ready for a possible pass, he couldn't get back fast enough to back up the shot. The Orange got the ball, but a late interference call against him gave the mids one last shot with 13 seconds left. A pass by Gill looked like it was deflected about 15 yards in front of the cage and the two teams scrambled for possession before one of the Syracuse players finally picked it up. He passed it down the field as time expired. Final score Syracuse 14-13. The mid's incredible run after being unranked at the start of the year was over.

Karl: 30:01

You know, when I look back on that 2004 Navy Men's Lacrosse season, there were just so many things to appreciate about that team. They were coming off a very disappointing year in 2003, and, led by Coach Meade, they just decided that 2004 was going to be different, and it truly was. Their 15 wins was a program record in the NCAA era. Dingman was the team's points leader with 62 on 36 goals and 26 assists. Bossi had 44 goals to lead the team in that category. And just to give you an idea of Navy's depth, Dingman, Bossi, Birsner, Gill, Steve Looney and Ben Bailey all finished the season with more than 20 points, and freshman Bill Looney was right there with 19.

Karl: 30:39

One of the things I found most gratifying was that the core of the team was made up of underclassmen, but the seniors, led by Bossi and Bailey, helped establish a culture where, on the field and in the locker room, everyone was treated equally. That helped create a team chemistry based on trust, and you saw it in the way they played. But I think what I appreciated most about that 2004 team was that they represented what college sports are all about. They came to Navy to serve their country, but they loved playing lacrosse too. They knew that there was no chance of playing professionally and earning money through endorsement deals. They just wanted to show that they could compete with the best teams in the country and in 2004, the Mid certainly proved it. They captured the hearts of college lacrosse fans across the country and took one of the most storied programs all the way down to the wire before the clock finally struck 12. It was one hell of an amazing run. We'll be right back.

Karl: 31:42

All right, we are starting to wind things down here, so that means it is time for our question of the day and before we get to it, let's go ahead and check the responses to the one from our last episode. You'll recall that our guest was Coach John Morrison from the Navy Women's Swimming and Diving Team. And here is the question In addition to winning multiple league championships, coach Morrison has also developed a number of swimmers who have qualified for the Olympic trials. How many have gone to the trials under his direction? Is it A 6, B 9, C 11, or D 12? So in checking the answers, the most popular one was B 9 Swimmers. 75% of you went with that one and the other 25% thought it was A6. Turns out, the correct answer is actually D 12 Swimmers. Coach Morrison had four athletes qualify in 2021, five in 2016, and three in 2012. And I have a feeling he could be adding to that total in the next couple of years as El Ahabian continues to develop. Okay, now it's time for our question for this episode.

Karl: 32:41

As of right now, there are nine Navy lacrosse players who have scored over 150 points in their careers. How many of them came from that 2004 team that made it to the NCAA Championship game? Was it A 1, B 2, C 3, or D 4? And, by the way, you get extra credit if you come up with the name or names of the players. Give that some thought and you can answer by replying to the poll question on the Navy Sports Nation group Facebook page. Now let's wrap things up by seeing how our two athletes on the Midwatch finished up their seasons. Let's go ahead and start with Zanai

Karl: 33:12

Barnett- Gay of the women's basketball team. From about the fourth game of the season, when she scored 29 points against Binghamton, you kind of got the feeling that she was a pretty special player. - Gay helped spark a turnaround in the program that saw the mids go from 1-17 in the Patriot League to 9-9, while advancing to the quarterfinals of the Patriot League tournament, and that game against Colgate was in doubt till the end. Barnett Gay finished up her first year as a team leader in points, averaging 18.2 a game, and the same goes for rebounds, where she pulled down 6.2 per contest. And she was no slouch on defense either, coming up with a total of 89 steals on the season. That was also a team high. The women's basketball team will only be losing three seniors, so Coach Taylor will have a strong court to build upon for next year. Barnett Gay and her classmate Kyah Smith give the Mids one of the most talented backcourts in the league, so I am very excited to see how this team continues to develop over the next few years.

Karl: 34:02

Now let's move on to Austin Benigni from the men's basketball team. What I like to buy the most is the way he always found a way to impact the game. Benini was the only player to average double digits on the season, putting up 17 per game. He's got a good outside shot, but his strength was definitely creating off the dribble and getting to the rim, and usually he'd wind up making the basket getting fouled or both. Coach DeChellis also put a pretty young team on the court this year. His starting lineup in the two Patriot League tournament games consisted of a freshman, three sophomores, including Benigni and a junior. So based on how much they developed throughout the year, I expect to see more good things in 2025.

Karl: 34:37

And finally, I wanted to give you all a heads up with respect to the two athletes who will be tracking in the spring. For the women, it will be Emily Messinese. She is a midfielder on the lacrosse team and she's off to a very strong start. The Navy offense has been hit by a couple of really big injuries early on. Both Eva Jovino and Lili Denton are out for the year, so Messinese has become an even bigger focal point when the Mids have the ball. So far, she's the team leader in points, with 29 on 24 goals and five assists, and in the win over Jacksonville this past weekend. She scored three goals and assisted on two more to finish with five points. The Mids head into their Patriot League schedule with a 6-1 record and they are ranked 18th in the country For the men.

Karl: 35:14

We'll be following Brock Murtha from the baseball team. He is a sophomore from Saville, new York. Murtha plays infield and he also pitches. What's most interesting here is that he started his career at Notre Dame and decided to transfer to Navy last year, and I have a feeling Ristano might might have had something to do with that, because he was the pitching coach for the Irish during Murtha's freshman year. Anyway, like I said, mertha is primarily an infielder and he currently leads the Mids in hitting, with a 400 average on 55 at bats. His on base percentage is nearly 57%. Mertha also leads the team in steals and is second in RBIs. The Mids are currently 8 and 8 and they start their Patriot League schedule this weekend with a four game series against Bucknell. So be sure to stay tuned as we track Brock Murtha's progress throughout the rest of the year.

Karl: 35:56

That's going to do it for this edition of Navy Sports Central. Thank you all so much for joining us Now. If you like what you've heard. Please be sure to hit that follow button wherever you get your podcast and remember to get the word to all the other Navy fans out there. Our question of the day continues to be a show favorite. You can get in on that by joining the Navy Sports Nation group Facebook page and giving your answer to this week's question. I will pin it to the top so you don't miss it. And just a quick reminder the views expressed on Navy Sports Central are my own and do not reflect those of the US Naval Academy or Navy Athletics. By the way, the music used in Navy Sports Central comes to you courtesy of Audio Jungle. This is a great site for purchasing the rights to use the music from thousands of artists around the world, and those featured in the podcast will be credited in our show notes. Talk to you soon, everybody. Until next time. This is Karl Darden. Go Navy! Beat Army!