Men's Tewaaraton Stock Watch: Princeton's Surging Sophomore

The Tewaaraton Foundation announced its nominees for its annual college men’s award last week, and there wasn’t much that was stunning.

* Of the 25 nominees, there are 13 attackmen, four defensemen, three offensive midfielders, three faceoff specialists and two goalies. No defenseman, goalie or faceoff specialist has ever won the men’s award.

* Both of last year’s finalists who remain in the college game (Penn midfielder Sam Handley and Virginia attackman Connor Shellenberger) are among the nominees.

* None of the 25 nominees play for teams currently under .500, though Michigan was 5-6 at the time of the announcement. (The Wolverines’ Josh Zawada is a nominee.) Only eight of the 105 finalists in the award’s history did not play for teams that reached the NCAA tournament.

* There are eight ACC players, six from the Big Ten, five from the Ivy League and three from the Big East. The Atlantic 10, Colonial and Patriot League each have one nominee. The last ACC player to win the men’s award was Virginia’s Steele Stanwick in 2011.

That drought could come to an end this year, especially considering who two of the top three contenders are heading into the final weekend of April.

1. Pat Kavanagh, A, Notre Dame (18 G, 37 A)

The senior sits at exactly 5.5 points per game after his one-goal, three-assist effort in the Fighting Irish’s 16-9 victory over North Carolina. He has at least three points in every game, multiple assists in each outing and is the focal point of an offense that’s managed at least 13 goals in all but one contest.

The exception? A 15-10 loss to Virginia on March 25, when Kavanagh still had two goals and two assists. He and the Irish get a second shot at the Cavaliers on Sunday in Charlottesville.

2. CJ Kirst, A, Cornell (55 G, 15 A)

The junior uncorked a six-goal, three-assist performance against Brown as the Big Red rolled to a 16-9 victory. Kirst leads the country in goals on both a per-game basis (4.58) and by raw total (55). Virginia’s Xander Dickson ranks second in the latter category with 52.

The Division I record for goals in a season is 82, set by Yale’s Jon Reese in 1990 and matched by Albany’s Miles Thompson in 2014. Is it time to start wondering whether it is reachable for Kirst?

Well, he could play as many as seven more games (Saturday against Princeton plus two Ivy League tournament games and four NCAA tournament contests). He would need to average 3.86 goals over seven games and 4.5 over six games to match Reese and Thompson. That’s a tough ask against top competition, but not impossible.

3. Brennan O’Neill, A, Duke (38 G, 27 A)

The Blue Devils had an open date last week and resume play Saturday in their regular-season home finale against Syracuse.

The junior is closing in on just the ninth 40-30 season in Duke history, and unsurprisingly it’s a Who’s Who of Blue Devils stars from the last 20 years: Matt Danowski (2005, 2007 and 2008), Zack Greer (2008), Jordan Wolf (2014), Myles Jones (2015) and Justin Guterding (2017 and 2018). Each of those, other than Guterding’s 2017 season, was rewarded with at least a Tewaaraton finalist nod.

4. Coulter Mackesy, A, Princeton (45 G, 20 A)

Is it fair to call Mackesy’s sophomore year a breakout season? After all, he had 25 goals and 13 assists in the Tigers’ last nine games a year ago as part of Princeton’s first trip to the final four in 18 years.

Whatever way it is described, he has stacked strong outings on top of each other, particularly since he had only one goal in Princeton’s loss to Penn to open Ivy League play. Since then? He’s torched his last five opponents for a combined 26 goals and 14 assists, downright Sowers-like in his efficiency, and he leads Division I with 5.91 points per game. A visit to Cornell is up next as the Tigers close out the regular season.

5. Payton Cormier, A, Virginia (43 G, 10 A)

The Cavaliers’ fifth-year Canadian has been his team’s best offensive player for more than a month now. Since returning from an injury that cost him two games in early March, Cormier has 25 goals in seven games, including a six-goal effort against Duke on March 31. It’s been needed, too, with attackman Connor Shellenberger slowed by an injury of his own.

Next five: Matt Brandau, A, Yale; Matt Campbell, M, Villanova; Tye Kurtz, A, Delaware; TJ Malone, A, Penn State; Connor Shellenberger, A, Virginia