Don’t look now, but the Army men’s lacrosse program might be the team to beat in 2025. Army is coming off an extremely dominant win against Yale University that not many people saw coming. Everyone assumed this would be a good game, but I don’t think many expected it to be the extreme blowout that it was. A box score of 14-3 is telling, but what makes it even crazier is that two of Yale’s three goals came on man-up opportunities.
It is unreal to think about a high-level Division One lacrosse team like Yale only scoring once in six-on-six opportunities. That is a statistic you typically only see in low-level high school games, if at all. It wasn’t like Army was causing a million turnovers or that Yale was just throwing the ball away. Yale finished the game with 18 turnovers, which is a sustainable number to win lacrosse games. They cleared fairly well too, going 19 for 22. The more I look at this stat line on paper, the wilder it gets. There is no glaring issue that Yale showed on paper that should have resulted in them only scoring one goal outside of man-up opportunities.
This Army defense is really going to be the catalyst of their success for the remainder of the year. They held Yale to 33 shots and only two in the fourth quarter—yet another mind-boggling stat. Of those 33 shots, only 19 were on cage, and 16 of them were saved. This tells me that Army did an excellent job forcing shots the goalie wanted to see, and you can see that when watching the game.
This win against Yale comes off a dominant 9-3 win against Rutgers, in which Army also held their opponent to just 33 shots. Army isn’t doing anything extremely out of the ordinary when it comes to defensive schemes, but they are doing the best job at playing team defense and handling their roles and responsibilities. They do not need the opposing team to clear the ball poorly, nor do they need to cause turnovers in order to get their offense the ball. The Black Knights are very confident in playing settled lacrosse on the defensive side of the field, simply knowing that their unit is better than anyone they go against. That is a level of confidence that comes with preparation.
Being a military academy, you’re always going to have like-minded individuals who pick up on schemes and responsibilities very well, and you can see that all coming together for Army right now. Is averaging three goals against per game sustainable for the entire season? Probably not. But when you look at the road ahead for Army, it really does seem like their defense is going to stay on a similar trajectory. Games against Mercer, Lafayette, and Holy Cross all seem like matchups where Army could potentially hold their opponents to under five goals in each contest.
Things ramp up when you look at the following games against Lehigh, Boston University, and North Carolina, but at that point, the Black Knights’ unit should be a completely well-oiled machine on the defensive side of the ball. As long as the offense can find the back of the net and the team continues to play great in between the lines—maintaining possession and not creating offensive advantages for the other team—this Army lacrosse squad really looks like it has a shot to make a run at it all this year, which is something I definitely wouldn’t have been able to say in the past.
This Army lacrosse defense looks elevated and is only going to get better as the season goes on, which is a terrifying thought for anyone they face.
