In some ways, Lehigh is about where outsiders might have guessed it would be in the preseason: Undefeated in the Patriot League, with a few stumbles against a tough nonconference schedule.

How the Mountain Hawks got there was anything but predictable.

Ravaged by injuries, Lehigh (5-3, 3-0) reaches the midpoint of Patriot play Saturday at Navy having plugged-and-played its way to a four-game winning streak that includes victories over Army, Colgate and Rutgers.

“That’s a credit to our resilience,” coach Kevin Cassese said. “The guys have continued to work at it. We’ve been able to use some of our depth, and a lot of freshmen and sophomores have stepped into some really important roles that maybe they weren’t expecting or that we weren’t expecting them to fill just yet. But they’ve been ready, and that’s been exciting to see.”

Cassese counted 10 guys who had passed through Lehigh’s injured list at some point or another. Attackman Andrew Pettit (46 goals in 2018) is out for the year with an ACL tear. Fellow senior Lucas Spence missed a couple of games but still has a team-high 25 points. Two of the Mountain Hawks’ top six midfielders have missed time, as have senior defenseman Eddie Bouhall and short stick Christian McHugh.

There was also the sobering experience of a 4-3 loss to Hofstra. But that, coupled with losses to Cornell and Virginia, has left the Mountain Hawks determined to use their entire roster to find paths to success. In last week’s defeat of Rutgers, Joel Trucksess replaced struggling faceoff ace Conor Gaffney and was 8-for-10 in a comeback victory. Trucksess had only attempted 10 faceoffs in Lehigh’s first six games.

“We took some lumps and we got humbled early, but that was maybe the best thing that could have happened to this team,” Cassese said.

Even with Lehigh perched alongside Loyola as the lone remaining Patriot League schools without a conference loss, Cassese isn’t interested in a long-term outlook. Besides, it’s taken enough effort to navigate the Mountain Hawks through their injury issues to worry much about the bigger picture, anyway.

“There’s really no secret sauce here,” Cassese said. “It’s a lot of elbow grease and putting the time in and getting guys ready as quickly as we can.”

PHOTO BY JOHN STROHSACKER

Mount grows up

Tom Gravante remembers all-too-well the good news and the bad news that came from watching his team’s practices a couple years ago. He would split his team into freshmen and sophomores on one side, juniors and seniors on the other.

The underclassmen came out on top in scrimmage after scrimmage.

“They still weren’t better than our opponents’ Jimmys and Joes, but we were very excited,” the Mount St. Mary’s coach said. “The future looked promising if they continued to improve and grow physically.”

That time has come. The Mount (4-5) has won four of its past five (with the lone loss at Johns Hopkins), the program’s best stretch since closing out the 2011 season with five wins in its last games. It won at Richmond earlier this month, and upended Bryant 10-7 in its Northeast Conference opener last weekend.

It’s still a relatively young team — of the nine players to start at least eight games, four are sophomores —  but there is stability. Senior Chris DiPretoro has a team-high 19 goals, and the Mountaineers hung around with the likes of Delaware and Georgetown well into the second half before getting on a roll of late.

Gravante is pleased with the progress of a back end led by junior Joshua Davies and sophomore Bryan McIntosh, as well as sophomore goalie Dylan Furnback (52.6 save percentage).

“We’ve been strong on defense,” Gravante said. “Dylan Furnback, he’s a ROTC kid, and he’s just programmed to be tough. I love the young man. He’s the kind of kid that if I was his teammate, and it’s 2-on-4 in an alley, I’m very comfortable with those odds.”

Still, Gravante knows there’s a long way for the Mount to go, starting with Saturday’s date with Robert Morris. He’s well aware of the NEC’s recent history — the conference tournament’s top seed hasn’t won the event since 2013 — but he also knows the challenges of simply finishing in the top four.

“I’m very excited about being 4-5 at this point in the season, but we know we’re moving into conference play, and in those games, you have to have nerves of steel,” Gravante said. “There has to be a bit of a gut check because for us, with even teams in the NEC, every game we play is a playoff game to make the conference playoffs.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF UMASS ATHLETICS

Minutemen rising

Defending CAA champion UMass dropped three of its first four games. Still, there was a lot trending in the Minutemen’s favor.

Their offense was generally pretty good. Tom Meyers provided an answer on faceoffs. Defenseman Isaac Paparo and goalie Sean Sconone were still anchoring the defense.

And since then? UMass (5-3) has rolled off four victories in a row entering Saturday’s nonconference finale against Brown. The Minutemen have allowed just 21 goals during their winning streak.

Meyers, Paparo and Sconone are all seniors. So are long pole Mike Elcock and short-stick defensive midfielder Anthony Reale, giving UMass a veteran flavor at that end of the field.

“It’s not just us,” coach Greg Cannella said. “Across the country at this time, you get to mid-March, late March, and these guys get a sense of urgency and realize the clock is ticking.”

That’s complemented an offense that figured things out pretty quickly. The Minutemen already have five 10-goal scorers, with freshman Gabriel Procyk stepping in immediately as a first-rate finisher (21 goals on 49 shots) and sophomore Chris Connolly following up his CAA Rookie of the Year season with 12 goals and 20 assists this year.

“We’ve kind of felt all spring we’ve done a nice job,” Cannella said. “No one’s beating Ohio State and not many people are scoring against them. But in our other games, we felt like we’ve gotten to double digits and done a decent job even in our losses. So nothing really there other than trying to play together and move the ball.”