Men's Lacrosse | 5/2/2019 2:08:00 AM
EMMITSBURG, Md. -- The
Robert Morris men's lacrosse team entered its 2019 regular season with five returning all-conference honorees, and it entered the postseason in similar fashion, including a historic honor for a player accustomed to making history.
Senior midfielder
Tyson Gibson brought the NEC Player of the Year award to Robert Morris for the fourth time, as the 2019 All-Northeast Conference Teams were unveiled Wednesday. The 6'1", 188-pound Maple, Ontario native and St. Michael's College School product is the third different Colonial to claim the honor after Trevor Moore won two in a row 2010-11 and future RMU Athletics Hall-of-Famer Kiel Matisz won it concurrently with his Offensive Player of the Year Award as a senior in 2012.
Furthermore, Gibson joins Matisz and
Eric Rankel '16 as the only other RMU players ever to make the All-NEC First Team three times. He has a point in 35 of his last 36 games dating back to 2017. He now has 149 all-time, leaving him fifth in RMU lore, and his 25 goals, 32 assists and 57 points were all career highs, and he tied with fifth-year teammate
Matt Schmidt for ninth in the NEC with 1.79 goals per game.
With 7:35 left in the first quarter versus Hobart last Saturday, Gibson set up
Corson Kealey for the Colonials' third goal of the game, putting him past Kyle Buchanan '12 as the program's new career assist leader (81). Through the regular season, Gibson, the NEC front-runner in assists, ranked 16th in Division I with his average of 2.29 apples per game, and the Colonials ranked fifth nationally with 9.21 helpers per contest.
He was nominated for the Senior CLASS (Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School®) Award, one of the premier citizenship honors in D-I athletics before being drafted by the Atlanta Blaze in the 2019 Major League Lacrosse Draft back on Mar. 9, with the 41st pick of the fifth round. This made Gibson the sixth player in Colonial lore to be selected into the outdoor circuit.
In the previous NEC Tournament, he scored perhaps the most famous goal in Robert Morris history, giving RMU its first-ever NEC Tournament crown and NCAA Tournament berth with his tally in the closing seconds of overtime at St. Joseph's May 5, 2018. Similarly, he saved his best for last, helping the Colonials win their critical regular-season finale to qualify for a fourth straight postseason.
Gibson was named the NEC Player of the Week for Week 12, taking the honor for the first time ever after leading the Colonials with seven points, also matching his career-high five assists for the second week in a row. The 2019 co-captain, part of McMinn's four-player leadership group, has consistently flexed his defensive muscles too.
His seven ground balls against the Statesmen were a career high, as were his 43 GB's for the regular campaign. He also set a new personal best with 11 caused turnovers, including one that led to the game-tying goal in the Colonials' come-from-behind victory over the Statesmen Apr. 27.
Meanwhile, junior attackman
Ryan Smith leads the trio of RMU players who made this year's All-NEC Second Team. The 6'2", 220-pound Burlington, Ontario native and Nelson High School standout receives that honor for the second time after achieving career highs in goals (36), assists (19) and points (55).
In addition, Smith caused nine turnovers after not recording any CT's as an underclassman, and his 30 ground balls tripled his personal mark. Smith matched his career-high four goals for the fourth time this season versus Hobart, and he set a new career high with seven points at Sacred Heart Mar. 16.
Smith's ninth hat trick of the year, tied for the team lead, included a third-quarter equalizer and another game-tying tally with :52 left in the fourth versus Hobart. He assisted on the overtime marker by Schmidt that definitively put Robert Morris into the conference tournament.
Averaging 1.36 helpers per game, Smith, like Gibson, is also in the NEC's top ten entering the postseason, coming in ninth. His 3.93 points-per-game clip ranks fourth in the conference, as does his average of 2.57 goals per game.
Thanks in large part to the Canadian duo, Robert Morris leads the NEC and has climbed to 16th in Division I with its .309 shot percentage. Additionally, RMU's average of 23.14 points per game is good for seventh in the nation.
Senior defenseman
Jack Toomb is also back on the All-NEC Second Team for a third time after recording 202 career ground balls. On Apr. 20 he joined Mike Grosz '12 and
Chris Barney '16 as the only other Colonials in history with 200 or more, and the first defenseman to reach that mark.
The 6'3", 195-pound Cincinnati native and Archbishop Moeller alumnus ranked fourth on the team with his 37 ground balls, and his career average of 3.26 per game is fifth all-time at RMU. As a collegian he has averaged nearly one caused turnover per game (0.98), sitting fifth in program history with 61.
Robert Morris averages 9.36 caused turnovers per game, second in the NEC and 18th in the country. Toomb has forced 18 miscues to lead the Colonials, needing one more to match his career high. His 62 career games played are tied for the fifth-most by a Colonial.
Right ahead of him is fellow senior
Daniel Smith, who made the All-NEC Second Team as a defensive midfielder. The elder Smith, who picked up his first all-conference accolade since making the 2016 All-NEC Rookie Team, has the unique distinction of appearing in all 63 games in an RMU uniform, one off the school record.
Smith has been key to the team's vaunted transition game. The 5'8", 170-pound Victoria, British Columbia native and Claremont Secondary product committed a career-low three turnovers this regular season while causing six, and he has scooped over 20 ground balls in all four collegiate seasons, collecting 26 through Week 12.
Despite downturns in clearing percentages all over the nation, he helped Robert Morris finish the regular campaign second in the NEC with its .841 success rate.
Finally, freshman attackman
Brandon Sulhoff represents the Colonials on this year's All-NEC Rookie Team. The 5'7", 179-pound Owings, Maryland native and Northern High School standout has recorded nine points, scoring a number of acrobatic goals in a substitute role for RMU, and four of his eight came in conference play.
Sulhoff enjoyed his second career multi-goal outing at St. Joseph's Mar. 30, the game that started the Colonials' record-tying six-game winning streak that propelled them into the NEC Tournament. He opened his NCAA account with a pair of goals versus Bellarmine Feb. 23, part of a second-half surge that led to the Colonials' first win of the year.
Robert Morris (7-7, 4-2) visits top-seeded Mount St. Mary's, the conference's regular season champion, for the first of two NEC Semifinal games Thursday. The opening faceoff from Waldron Family Stadium is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. EDT and can be seen live on NEC Front Row and ESPN3.
Tickets, which will be made available at the stadium on gameday, are $10.00 for adults and $5.00 for senior citizens and fans 18 and under. All students of NEC member schools receive free admission with their institutional I.D.
VisitÂ
NortheastConference.org for more event information.
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