On Nov. 29, Yale was placed at No. 16 in Inside Lacrosse’s Face-Off Yearbook 2011: Division 1 Men’s Lacrosse Top 20 Rankings.
“The preseason ranks don’t really mean anything,” attackman Matt Gibson ’12 said. “I think our team knows just how good we are and how good we can be, and what’s written in a magazine doesn’t change that much.”
The Bulldogs finished last season in a four-way tie for the Ivy League championship, earning the title for the first time since the legendary John Reese ’90 ‘s graduated. Two Ivy League teams — Cornell (No. 4) and Princeton (No. 10) — are placed in front of the Bulldogs. Yale was blown out at Cornell in their first Ivy match-up and lost to Princeton by a single goal on two occasions last year, including a heartbreaking defeat after coming back from a 7-2 deficit in the fourth quarter of the Ivy League semifinals.
While Princeton is expected to perform better than Yale in 2011, they’ll have to do so without the 2010 Ivy League Rookie of the Year Mike Chanenchuk, who will be taking a leave of absence from Princeton for the spring semester. Chanenchuk, a 2008 graduate of St. Anthony’s High School on Long Island, is a long-time rival of Gibson, a 2008 graduate of Chaminade High School. Gibson’s Flyers defeated Chanenchuk’s Friars in the NSCHSAA Varsity AA title game for all four years the two were in high school.
“I’ve known Mike for a while now, and I’m pretty upset to see him in a situation like the one he’s currently in” Gibson said. “As for its effect on us, there’s just one less threat to worry about, but I’m pretty sure they’ll have plenty of talent to replace him with.”
Inside Lacrosse Face-Off Yearbook 2011: Division 1 Men’s Lacrosse Top 20 Rankings
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Syracuse
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Virginia
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North Carolina
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Cornell
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Duke
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Maryland
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Notre Dame
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Stony Brook
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Hofstra
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Princeton
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Johns Hopkins
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Denver
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Army
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Loyola
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UMass
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Yale
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Brown
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Georgetown
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Drexel
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Bucknell