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| Vol. 18, No. 31 | May 13, 1999 |
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| Vol. 18, No. 31 | May 13, 1999 |
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For the first time since 1984, the men's lacrosse team is headed back to the NCAA Tournament. The Blue Hens, who established school records for wins, goals scored, longest winning streak and highest national rank this season, earned the No. 6 seed and will take on UMBC in the first round of the tournament this Sunday, May 16 at Towson University's Minnegan Stadium.
Delaware will be making just its second NCAA Tournament appearance and first since falling to top seed Johns Hopkins 10-3 in 1984 in Baltimore.
The Blue Hens (13-2), who have won three straight games, take on a UMBC team that is 11-3 and has won eight straight games. The Delaware-UMBC game will start 45 minutes after Sunday's noon opener matching No. 5 Georgetown (11-2) vs. Notre Dame (8-5).
The Blue Hens, who won their first America East title since 1994 this season under head coach Bob Shillinglaw, are led by senior All-American attackman John Grant. A national player-of-the-year candidate, Grant has led the nation in scoring most of the season and enters the playoffs with a school-record 96 points on 49 goals and 47 assists.
The senior-laden Blue Hens, who rank second nationally in scoring at 15.13 goals per game, also are led by seniors Sean Carney (26g, 22a),
Dennis DeBusschere (37g, 8a), Kevin Lavey (32g, 12), Jim Bruder (27g, 12a), defenseman Marc Traverso, and goalkeeper Ron Jedlicka (11.42 gaa, .541 save pct.).
The Retrievers, in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year, are allowing just 7.92 goals per game, seventh best in the nation in last week's NCAA statistics.
"We are excited to be in the tournament and especially happy to be playing at Towson where our fans and students can see us play," Shillinglaw said. "We've seen a lot of UMBC this season. Both teams are strong offensively and UMBC has an outstanding goalkeeper in Hampson. We have to make quality shots and continue to keep doing what we've been doing all season. We have an experienced group and we feel we can compete with a majority of the teams in the tournament."
The quarterfinals of the 12-team field will be held May 22 at Hofstra and May 23 at Princeton.
The semifinals and finals will be held May 29 and 31 at the University of Maryland's Byrd Stadium in College Park, Md.
For ticket information for Delaware's first round game vs. UMBC, call (410) 830-2244. Ticket information is also available for the quarterfinals at Princeton at (609) 258-3538 and for the finals at Maryland at 1-800-462-8377.
