BALTIMORE — If we learned anything from the start of the college lacrosse season it’s that the Loyola University men’s lacrosse team is going to be a fun watch in 2024.
The Greyhounds are the only team in the country to have three players score four or more goals in their season opener. They crushed then-No. 11 Georgetown on Saturday 18-10. Evan James had a career-high nine points on five goals and four assists. Adam Poitras and Matthew Minicus each scored four goals.
"It was awesome. It’s always good to come out fast like that in the beginning of the season," said James. "It was a great atmosphere here, a lot of fans. It was fun."
This weekend they look to keep that offense red hot when they make the trip to face Maryland. The Terps, who are 1-0 as well, are ranked No. 4 in the country. Loyola is No. 12. Charley Toomey is entering his 19th year as Greyhounds head coach.
"I know that I got my guys’ attention from day one when you’ve got a team like Maryland on the schedule really early," he said. "You kind of have to be buttoned up as well as you can be going into this matchup."
That game one win has the Hounds more than buttoned up from the neck up.
"Winning last weekend gives us a little bit of confidence that what we are doing is working," said Toomey. "We came out of there with a little bit of confidence and hopefully we can go down to College Park with that confidence on Saturday."
"When you set a bar that high it’s fun to think about where you can go and just making sure that you keep taking those steps to continue to get better and not taking steps backwards," said defenseman Alex Bean.
The Greyhounds and Terps are set for their 26th all-time meeting on Saturday at Noon. Maryland owns a 21-4 record in the series.
After winning last year’s game Loyola is trying to take two in a row against the Terrapins for the first time in program history.
Follow Shawn Stepner on Twitter @StepnerWMAR and Facebook
