MLAX Hosts Denver Friday on Senior Day

MILWAUKEE – The Marquette University men’s lacrosse team hosts Denver on Friday evening at Valley Fields in its regular season finale.

Opening faceoff is slated for 6:02 p.m. Central time and the contest from the Menomonee Valley airs live on the BIG EAST Digital Network through FloCollege with Scott Sudikoff on the call.

Tickets for the event are available through the Marquette Ticket Office online or by calling 414-288-GOMU (4668). Tickets can also be purchased at the gate on Friday.

The winner of the contest earns a spot in the BIG EAST Conference tournament, which will be held on May 1-3 in Denver at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium. The Pioneers could rise to the No. 2 seed in the semifinals with a win, while MU would be the No. 4 seed with a victory on Friday. Both would be officially eliminated with a loss.

Marquette’s senior day celebration, honoring 14 student-athletes plus three senior team managers, begins at 5:25 p.m. CT.

MARQUETTE (6-6, 1-3 BIG EAST)

• The Golden Eagles have lost their last three conference games after starting the season 6-3 with a win in their league opener against St. John’s on March 29.
• Two of MU’s conference losses have come by a single goal. MU fell in double overtime to then-No. 14 Georgetown on April 5 and 14-13 at Villanova last Saturday.
• As a team, the Golden Eagles are third in the nation on man-up opportunities with a .571 success rate (16-of-28) and went 2-for-3 last weekend at Villanova. Junior Matt Caputo is eighth in the country with six man-up goals and has scored 18 times this season.
• MU is 25th in the nation in faceoff winning percentage (.532).
• MU’s all-time leading scorer and point producer Bobby O’Grady, has a team-best 28 goals and 42 points. He’s fifth in NCAA Division I among active players with 142 career goals.
• Senior attackman Nolan Rappis sits just behind O’Grady with a career-high 40 points on 26 goals and 14 points. Rappis set a program single-game record with 10 points (five goals, five assists) in the win over Detroit Mercy on Feb. 8.
• Senior midfielder Will Foster is among MU’s all-time leaders in goals, assists and total points. His 50 career assists are fourth in program history, while he is seventh in points (100) and 10th in goals (50). He’s just the third player in program history to reach 100 career points with at least 50 goals and 50 assists (Ryan McNamara and Conor Gately).
• Junior goalie Lucas Lawas has started every game in net this season and through four BIG EAST games has posted a .545 save percentage in league action with an average of 13.75 saves per game. Dating back to the overtime win at Utah on March 15, Lawas has recorded at least 14 saves in five of six games.
• O’Grady, Foster and junior SSDM Peter Detwiler are team captains for the 2025 campaign.
• MU’s four-game winning streak from March 4-29 is its first since 2017.
• Former MU USILA All-American Jake Richard, a Team USA and PLL defensive midfielder, is in his first season as head coach at his alma mater. Richard has been involved with all 170 games in program history as either a student-athlete (2013-16) or assistant coach (2017-24). During his playing career, he led MU to the program’s first BIG EAST Conference title in 2016 and still ranks among MU’s all-time leaders in games played (fourth, 61), ground balls (fourth, 193), and caused turnovers (sixth, 38).

DENVER (7-6, 2-2 BIG EAST)

• The Pioneers own a non-conference win over then-No. 7/8 Duke on March 22 in Dallas, in addition to wins over common opponents Utah and Air Force early in the year.
• DU has split its four BIG EAST games with wins at St. John’s and then-No. 13 Georgetown, coupled with losses at home to Villanova and Providence.
• Denver’s 10-6 loss to PC last Saturday set the stage for Friday night’s de facto league tournament play-in game at Valley Fields. DU fell behind the Friars, 9-1, in the first half.
• DU goalie Malcolm Kleban sits second in the BIG EAST and 16th nationally with a 9.20 goals-against average.
• The Pioneers are led offensively by 29 goals and 41 total points from Noah Manning, while Mic Kelly, Cody Malawsky and Marek Tzagournis each have at least 27 points. Manning and Kelly each have a team-best five man-up scores.
• Recently known for a strong faceoff unit led by some of the best faceoff specialists in the game’s history, DU has struggled at the dot this season. The Pios have won just 131-of-307 faceoffs (.427) to rank 67th out of 74 teams in NCAA Division I.
• Matt Brown is in his second season as head coach at Denver. He spent 14 years as an assistant coach at DU and served as the squad’s offensive coordinator under Bill Tierney.

HISTORY WITH THE PIOS

• Denver leads the all-time series 13-2 and has won each of the last eight matchups.
• Both of MU’s wins over DU have come in the BIG EAST tournament; a 10-9 win at then-No. 1 Denver in the 2016 title game and an 11-8 victory over then-No. 2 Denver in the 2017 league semis.
• Denver has won all five previous meetings in Wisconsin, but the last three contests at MU have been one-goal decisions in 2019, 2021 and 2023 (OT).
• The Pios won 15-9 in last year’s regular season finale in Denver behind four goals from Cody Malawsky and five assists from JJ Sillstrop.
• This year marks the first time in 15 meetings that Denver is not ranked at the time of the matchup. DU has met MU 10 times when ranked in the top five of the USILA Coaches Poll.

OFFENSIVE DEPTH EMERGING

• O’Grady has been one of the most productive players since bursting onto the scene with a program-record 45 goals as a freshman in 2022. This season his fellow attackmen, Rappis and Brandt, have come into their own to lead the way for the Golden Eagles.
• Beyond O’Grady (42) and Rappis (40) as MU’s point leaders, Matt Caputo (27), Will Foster (28) and Carsen Brandt (29) are each at 27 or more. This year marks the first time in 14 seasons of the program’s existence that MU has had five players with 27-or-more points in a single season.
• The Golden Eagles are also able to roll two productive midfield lines for the first time in recent memory with freshman Noah Snyder and sophomore Beau Westphal each providing significant offense and Jake Bair returning from injury in recent games.
• Snyder was the BIG EAST Freshman of the Week on Feb. 24 after posting the first five points of his NCAA career in a 15-7 win over Cleveland State with a hat trick and two assists.
• Caputo and Foster anchor the first midfield.

DEFENSE KEEPS GOLDEN EAGLES ALIVE LATE

• Marquette’s defense has held the Golden Eagles in contention late in games this season with standout play from junior goalie Lucas Lawas and a defensive unit led by team captain Peter Detwiler at the short stick position.
• Lawas has picked up his play in recent weeks, especially in late-game situations. He held the Hoyas to just one score in the final 18:54 of regulation plus over seven minutes of extra time. Lawas notched 15 saves and held Air Force scoreless for the final 19:12 in a 9-8 win on March 22 in Wilmette, Illinois. In the win over St. John’s on March 29, Lawas made eight of his nine saves in the second half and held the Red Storm to just one goal over the final 21:09.
• Detwiler and the defensive midfield have proved to be a strength this year after entering the season as a question mark. Detwiler was named to the USILA Team of the Week on April 2 after helping MU to a win over St. John’s in its league opener with a goal, five ground balls and three caused turnovers. He leads MU defensive players with 30 ground balls this season.
• Poles David Lamarca (44 career games entering 2025) and Mike Piraino (22 games) return as MU’s most experienced defenders and played both LSM and close defense last season. Piraino has started all 10 games this year at close and is joined by fifth-year Ryan Kilcoyne (MU’s 2024 man-down specialist) and freshman Brady Nicholas, who has started each of the last six games.
• Nicholas, who attended Loyola Blakefield like Lamarca, is MU’s most heralded freshman recruit and has 19 ground balls and seven caused turnovers this season. Nicholas is a member of the 42-player Team USA U20 Training Team for the 2025 World Lacrosse Championship.
• Lawas returns in 2025 after playing just 38 minutes last season behind Creasor. Lawas played big minutes at the end of his freshman campaign in 2023, which featured overtime losses to three top-12 teams to end the season.

Keep up with the Marquette men’s lacrosse program through social media by following on X (@MarquetteMLax) and Instagram (@MarquetteMLax) and ‘liking’ on Facebook (/MarquetteMLax).

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.