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A season after the Boston Cannons underwent another facelift, they continued on that path at the 2018 Major League Lacrosse collegiate draft held last week at US Lacrosse in Sparks, Md.

With the first overall selection, the Cannons added Denver faceoff specialist Trevor Baptiste, the first at his position ever to be selected that high.

The pick signaled the direction in which the Cannons are headed, along with the trending shift in philosophy around the league.

Just three years out from Greg Gurenlian becoming the first FOGO to win the league’s MVP award, the faceoff position is at a premium in MLL. In addition to Boston’s Baptiste selection, Charlotte took Noak Rak out of UMass with the 30th pick and Ohio snagged Bryant specialist Kenny Massa with the next selection. In the fifth round, Atlanta took Hunter Forbes out of Jacksonville and New York added Connor Mackie of Yale back-to-back.

Hunter Moreland of Johns Hopkins was the last pick of the draft to Dallas, totaling six faceoff specialists added to professional squads, the most since three were added in 2014.

Last season, just two faceoff specialists were picked. The year before, one.

 

The shift in the way teams value faceoffs has been a slow progress, starting with the appreciation of Gurenlian. He retired at the end of last season, and the baton will likely be passed to Baptiste as the face of the position in the league. The duo will be teammates with the U.S. national team this summer.

“You look at what he has done and in certain games he’s won literally every faceoff,” Cannons coach Sean Quirk said of Baptiste. “He’s a dominant faceoff guy. And with Greg Gurenlian leaving this league, [people] are saying that he could be the next long-time faceoff guy. We’ve certainly been watching him closely.”

Baptiste is a generational talent, having won more than 70 percent of his faceoffs in his four seasons at Denver. He has won an NCAA championship (as a freshman in 2015) and will head to Israel with Team USA this summer. He’s 24 faceoff wins shy of the NCAA record. Last season, he was the first-ever FOGO named a Tewaaraton finalist. In 2015, the Pioneers championship year, Baptiste set the NCAA record for single-season faceoff wins by a freshman with 310.

It takes talent to be selected first overall, but the numbers still indicate how much teams are valuing the faceoff position. The Cannons had plenty of opportunities to move the draft pick, with the Charlotte Hounds giving a good offer before the selection, but they opted to keep Baptiste.

Boston also still has Joe Nardella in the fold. Nardella was the Cannons’ third-round pick out of Rutgers in 2015, and has made a huge impression on the team and has emerged as a top faceoff specialist in the league.

Nardella is on injured reserve to start the season, but the Cannons also added, and protected, MLL veteran Geoff Snider just a couple of weeks ago. They also protected Tommy Hughes.

After missing the postseason for the second straight year, and trading away star attackman Will Manny, there are a lot of questions about how the Cannons will improve. They lost midfielder Josh Hawkins as well, and haven’t made a ton of offseason moves to replace any regulars.

The Cannons puzzle isn’t quite solved yet — Boston opened the season with a 25-7 loss to Charlotte — but they took a big step drafting Baptiste.

Bulldogs and Bison Going Pro

Yale made out as a big winner on the night with six players selected. Starting with Ben Reeves going fourth overall to Dallas, the Bulldogs had the highest number of selections to go pro.

The Rattlers traded up for Reeves, and stayed on the Yale bandwagon with the addition of defenseman Chris Keating in the third round. New York had been keen on Keating, and Dallas was excited to snag him.

Florida selected defensive midfielder Tyler Warner in the second round, while Charlotte added midfielder Jason Alessi and the Lizards picked Mackie for faceoffs. Yale’s night ended when the Launch double dipped with the Bulldogs by adding defender Jerry O'Connor in the seventh round.

Not too far behind the Bulldogs was Bucknell. The Bison have quietly been a presence in the Patriot League for a few years, and those players are getting rewarded.

Will Sands went at the top of the third round to the Cannons. He should get a chance to play after spending far too long being overlooked as an elite scorer in the Patriot League.

His teammate, Sean O’Brien, was selected by the Rattlers to kick off the fifth round. Matt Gilray went to Denver a few picks later, and Connor O’Hara joined him with the Outlaws.

Loyola gets a lot of love in the PL, and Lehigh has seen its share of players going pro, but Bucknell now has a nice resume of talent going through Lewisberg.

A Dolphin Tale

A fun note came out of the Dallas Rattlers’ first-ever draft. They drafted midfielder McLean Chicquen out of Jacksonville, where Dallas goalie John Galloway is a coach. Now, they’ll be teammates at the professional level.

The Jacksonville captain has 29 points in 12 games this season. He was selected three picks before the draft concluded.

“Just because we are teammates now does NOT mean I plan on taking it easy on you next few weeks,” Galloway tweeted.

The Dolphins also were winners on draft night, with three players selected. Previously, two Jacksonville players had ever been drafted, period. Forbes was selected by Atlanta while Ryan Beville went to the Launch.

Cameron Mann and Duncan Clancy had been the only Dolphins selected previously.