For the second time in three years, Franklin & Marshall has the No. 1 seed in the Centennial Conference men's lacrosse tournament, having closed out the regular season with three straight wins.

But repeating how 2017 went — that’s when the Diplomats won their only conference tournament title, a 9-8 victory over Gettysburg in overtime — won’t come easily.

A semifinal matchup against Ursinus, the conference’s Cinderella story this spring, awaits. The Bears already knocked off F&M, 16-15 in overtime, back on April 13. The Diplomats had three different five-goal leads in that game, but couldn’t hold on.

“You never know what's going to go on with the NCAAs and where you stand, so we look at this game against Ursinus as a massive opportunity,” F&M coach Todd Cavallaro said. “It's a game we lost in overtime a few weeks back, so we're awfully excited to play this again. They're a great team.”

To boost its chances of advancing, F&M has one of the best attack trios in the country. It’s led by what Cavallaro calls the one-two punch of junior Kevin Mollihan and sophomore Luke Keating, “one of the best overall attackmen” he’s ever coached at any level. They, alongside freshman Blake Target, have combined for 218 points thus far.

But the credit, he feels, might lie elsewhere: the midfield

“Our starting three, our first three are all former attackmen in high school,” Cavallaro said of George Briggs, A.J. Rigsby and Tucker McBride. “They have a great knowledge of the game, and I know our attack gets a lot of credit, but so much of it is our midfield setting the plays up. They do a lot of the dirty work that certainly makes No. 34 and No. 22 shine on most days.”

The defense has also been solid, anchored by ground-ball machine Tommy O'Connor and the hot hand in goal, Luke Mutterer.

Now, Cavallaro hopes they can emerge from the Centennial and keep rolling deeper into May.

“This conference isn’t easy,” Cavallaro said. “There are four or five teams in the mix every year, it seems.”