In the grand scheme of college lacrosse, Christopher Newport is still a relatively young program. This year only marks its 14th year of Division III competition, and the Captains have only been in the Capital Athletic Conference for seven years.

But when US Lacrosse Magazine touched base with D-III coaches in the preseason, most agreed that 2020 could be the year Christopher Newport goes from simply a quality team to a legitimate contender in the south region.

Those predictions might hold water, with the Captains starting the year 3-0 and emerging with a come-from-behind 10-9 victory over Hampden-Sydney last weekend. This weekend’s test against Ursinus, the defending Centennial Conference winner, should be telling, as should the program’s first-ever trip to the Mustang Classic in mid-March.

Head coach Mikey Thompson isn’t getting ahead of himself just yet, even as the program’s reputation continues to climb.

“I recognize that sustained success does take time, and I truly feel like we’ve made a lot of progress every year,” Thompson said. “I'd like to be known as a program that gets better every year, and that’s not always going to show with our overall record or how many times we make the tournament or things like that.

“There are so many pieces to the puzzle in terms of what makes a successful program, and that’s really my primary focus. It’s making sure we’re improving every year and ensuring our program is becoming stronger every year, just because we’re still relatively young. To get good recruits, you need success on the field, and to have success on the field you need a strong culture. There are all these pieces that have to be in place before you can expect sustained success over and over again.”

One reason Thompson pumps the brakes is the hard-to-ignore realities of the CAC. Five of the last six tournament titles have gone to Salisbury, with the one outlier going to York in 2016.

Oh, and Salisbury has won 12 D-III national titles to only trail Hobart (now Division I), and York has evolved into a perennial final four contender. That hierarchy naturally slots Christopher Newport into the CAC’s No. 3 spot, a place the Captains have finished every year since 2015 and the place they were picked for this year’s CAC preseason poll.

Should the Captains’ early returns keep rolling into conference play, they’ll have plenty of momentum when facing York on April 4 and Salisbury on April 18. But Thompson doesn’t project that far out.

“We really don’t want to get too far ahead thinking about Salisbury or York in conference play,” Thompson said. “We have so many great opponents on our schedule, and I’ve always seen playing them as a blessing in disguise. They’ve been a big part of why we can improve, having that bar raised by them in the conference. Those guys have pushed us to improve.”

That push will affect a relatively young Christopher Newport team in 2020, too. Aside from starting goalkeeper Scott McAneney, no seniors see a ton of time. Even three of the team’s four leading scorers — Alex Brendes, Coby Auslander and Drew Miller — are freshmen.

That’s been a recurring theme for the Captains in recent years, and it speaks to the overall culture that Thompson is trying to build. Energy and tempo are buzzwords he often uses when discussing the program, two traits that drive their overall ambitions.

That energy will drive Christopher Newport’s ambition of cracking the CAC pecking order in 2020 — even if that’s one piece of its broader aims.

“You just want to make sure the guys you’re with are having a great experience over their four years,” Thompson said. “You can’t put it all on winning. You have to make sure that your guys are having fun, they love being a part of the team, they have high aspirations for the program and high goals, but at the end of the day, we want to make sure that CNU is one of the best places in Division III to play lacrosse.”