MLAX faces No. 13/12 Michigan on Saturday in Naples, Florida

Game Notes (PDF) | Watch Live (BTN+)

MILWAUKEE – The Marquette University men's lacrosse team heads to the Southwest Florida Shootout for the second time in as many years to face No. 13/12 Michigan on Saturday, Feb. 24 at Paradise Coast Sports Complex Stadium.

The contest airs live on BTN+ at 6 p.m. Central time and statistics will be available through GoMarquette.com.

The Golden Eagles and Wolverines are the lone NCAA Division I matchup in the event and follow the afternoon game between the University of Tampa and Florida Tech at 2 p.m. CT.

For more details on the event and to purchase tickets ahead of time, fans can visit the Southwest Florida Shootout website here. Ticket prices will increase by $5 on gameday.

MARQUETTE (3-1, 0-0 BIG EAST)

The Golden Eagles are 3-1 following season-opening wins at Air Force and against Lindenwood and Detroit Mercy at Valley Fields. MU also fell to No. 1 Notre Dame at home on Sunday afternoon.
MU's veteran core has reached numerous statistical milestones through the first three games of this season, including a new program ground ball record for defenseman Mason Woodward (223), the 100-point threshold for Bobby O'Grady (114) and Jake Stegman (106), 100-goal plateau for O'Grady (101) and the career assist record for Stegman (69).
Stegman and O'Grady each lead the team with 15 points through four games.
MU boasts one of the nation's best faceoff units in graduate students Luke Williams and Grant Evans, alongside redshirt freshman Adam Slager. MU sits 16th nationally at a .616 clip through four games as a team, while Williams leads the BIG EAST Conference and is eighth nationally at .680 (34-of-50) with 6.50 ground balls per game. Slager is 18th nationally at .633 (31-of-49).
Woodward was named to the Tewaaraton Award Watch List last week and is a consensus preseason All-America selection, with recognition from USILA, Inside Lacrosse and USA Lacrosse Magazine.
Junior attackman Bobby O'Grady is currently second in program history with 101 career goals and fifth in points with 114. He joined all-time scoring leader Ryan McNamara (102) as the only MU players to reach 100 career goals in Sunday's game against Notre Dame and can pass McNamara on Saturday in just his 34th career game (it took McNamara 64 games to reach the mark).
The Golden Eagles were projected to place third in the BIG EAST Conference Preseason Coaches' Poll. MU returns eight of 10 starters from last season, including Preseason BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Year Mason Woodward and preseason all-conference selections in Cowan and O'Grady.
In total, the Golden Eagles return 94 percent of their offensive production this season from the highest-scoring team (13.29 goals per game) in program history.
Head coach Andrew Stimmel is in his fifth season as MU's program steward. He also served one year as a MU assistant coach in 2016 during the team's first BIG EAST championship season.

MICHIGAN (2-1, 0-0 BIG TEN)

The Wolverines won their last two games against Canisius and Hobart after a season-opening 19-11 loss to then-No. 3 Virginia on Feb. 10.
Justin Tiernan and Michael Boehm each scored a game-high five goals against Hobart on Feb. 17, while goalie Hunter Taylor made 12 saves in the 18-8 win.
Boehm leads U-M with 17 points on nine goals and eight assists, while Tiernan, a graduate transfer from Lehigh, has a team-high 13 scores. Hunter has started each game in net and boasts a .500 save percentage and 10.95 goals against average.
Boehm is a member of the Tewaaraton Award Watch List, a preseason All-American and is 11 points from becoming the second Wolverine to reach 200 career points.
Head coach Kevin Conry guided U-M to its first Big Ten Tournament title and NCAA tournament victory last spring. The Wolverines defeated Ohio State, then-No. 4 Penn State and then-No. 7 Maryland for the league crown. They also knocked off then-No. 6 Cornell on the road in overtime for their first NCAA win before falling to No. 1 Duke in the regional final in Albany, New York.

HISTORY WITH THE WOLVERINES

Michigan holds a slim 3-2 advantage in the all-time series.
Marquette won last year's meeting in the Southwest Florida Shootout, 14-9, behind a career-high four goals from midfielder Griffin Fries. The Golden Eagles shot out to a 5-0 lead in the first 10 minutes of the game and never looked back. U-M pulled within three, 8-5, with a trio of goals over the final 2:20 of the second quarter, but MU struck early in the third to reclaim a five-goal edge.
The two Midwestern programs have met all but one season (2021) since 2018 and played the last game of the 2020 NCAA lacrosse campaign, a 13-12 win by the Wolverines in Ann Arbor.
MU (2013) and Michigan (2012) both played their first seasons of NCAA Division I lacrosse a little over a decade ago, though each took different paths to get to that point. MU started its program from scratch, while the Wolverines were elevated from a club program under former head coach John Paul.
The two teams faced each other consistently in exhibition games prior to their first regular season meeting in 2018, which was a 12-7 win by Michigan in Ann Arbor.

MU LOADED WITH EXPERIENCE

Marquette returns 10 graduate students in addition to 14 other seniors looking to get MU back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since consecutive appearances in 2016-17.
Three-time USILA All-American Mason Woodward is back for a fifth year, as are fellow captains Devon Cowan, Jake Stegman, Noah Verlinde and Luke Williams. Cowan, Stegman and Williams all made late decisions last spring to return for 2024.
Stegman leads the MU contingent entering this season with 46 career games played, while Woodward, Max Kruszeski, Verlinde and Cowan have each played over 40 games at MU. Faceoff specialist Grant Evans played 54 games over four seasons at NCAA Division III Grove City College (2019-22) and 12 last year for Marquette.

MU HAS VETERAN OFFENSIVE PIECES

Cowan and Stegman return alongside junior scoring dynamo Bobby O'Grady to lead an offense that ranked as the highest scoring in program history last spring with 13.29 goals per contest and brings back 94 percent of its point production.
O'Grady and Cowan have 101 and 91 career goals, respectively, and are within striking distance of Ryan McNamara's program record of 102.
Stegman has 69 career assists and passed Conor Gately's MU record of 63 in the win over Detroit Mercy on Feb. 13.
Stegman also set the MU single-game record for assists with six in the Feb. 13 win over Detroit Mercy.
Stegman set a single-season program record with 32 assists in 2023 (12 more than the previous record set by Gately in 2013). The Naperville, Illinois native switched to a spot in MU's first midfield unit during league play and responded with his first all-conference season.

O'GRADY VAULTS UP MU RECORD BOOK

Bobby O'Grady burst onto the scene as the 2022 BIG EAST Freshman of the Year and has scored at an elite pace in his first two seasons at Marquette (3.02 goals per game).
Through just 33 games of his NCAA career, he's second in program history in career goals (101) and the all-time leader in man-up scores (22).
He turned in a record-setting season as a true freshman in 2022, setting new program records for goals (45) and man-up scores (13). He also recorded just the fourth 50-point season at Marquette and tied a BIG EAST record with eight goals at St. John's on April 9, 2022.

DEEP AT THE DOT

Marquette's faceoff unit got a much-needed boost with the return of graduate faceoff specialists Luke Williams, a 2022 All-BIG EAST selection, and Grant Evans for their final seasons of eligibility.
Two of the four seasons that Marquette has faced-off at above a 50-percent clip have come in the last two campaigns.
Williams ranks in the top-seven student-athletes in MU history in both ground balls and faceoff win percentage.
Redshirt freshman Adam Slager from Stoughton, Wisconsin made an impressive career debut in MU's season-opening win at Air Force. In the first playing time of his career, Slager won 8-of-10 draws and picked up four ground balls.
Evans saw his first significant playing time at MU on March 11, 2023 with eight wins on 12 draws against Bellarmine. He followed that up with a 10-of-13 performance with six ground balls and a goal in the victory over then-No. 5 Penn State.
Evans posted a season-long win percentage of .542 (77-of-142) last season and was second on the squad with 47 ground balls.
Evans was a graduate transfer last year from NCAA Division III Grove City College, where he was the NCAA statistical champion in faceoff win percentage (.795) as a freshman in 2019.

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