How Michigan men's lacrosse went from fledgling program to NCAA tournament

When the final seconds ticked off the clock in the Big Ten men's lacrosse tournament final in Baltimore on Saturday, the last scene was a dogpile of maize and blue jerseys on Johns Hopkins' Homewood Field.

Moments later, when the Michigan men's lacrosse team was presented with the trophy for knocking off defending national champion Maryland, 14-5, to claim the program's first Big Ten tournament title, it wasn't coach Kevin Conry who accepted the award.

Nor was it the nation's best faceoff man in Justin Wietfeldt or even the Big Ten tournament's Most Valuable Player, Michael Boehm.

The honor went to Joe Hennessy: the Wolverines' director of operations who has been involved with the program for more than two decades, from its infancy as a club team in the 2000s, to its initiation into the NCAA (2012), to its involvement in the Big Ten supporting the sport (2015 was the first year of the tournament and its automatic qualifying bid) and now finally its first NCAA tournament berth.

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"It was awesome raising that trophy, but I’m just the physical embodiment of literally hundreds of people," he told the Free Press on the phone earlier this week. "Former club players, administrators, the coaches ... their wives. It was pretty incredible."

While nearly everybody involved with the program has seen some form of tough times — it was just last season when the Wolverines dropped their final eight games of the season and didn't get a win in Big Ten play (0-5) — Hennessy remembers the true leanest years.

Not just the first 11 seasons as an NCAA program, when the Wolverines were 49-96 and fighting for footing.

He still recalls the days of the crowd sitting "six inches off the field," when there wasn't a stadium solely dedicated to lacrosse on State Street — which Hennessy called the nicest facility in the country — but rather when the team played second- (or third- or fourth-) fiddle to soccer, baseball or softball at Oosterbaan Fieldhouse.

"It was different then," Hennessy said with a laugh.

The Wolverines started the 2023 season 5-6, and it looked as if there would be no postseason again, but U-M won four straight, including three games in the Big Ten tournament over Ohio State (14-10), No. 4 Penn State (17-15) and No. 7 Maryland (14-5) to earn a trip to the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history.

Michigan will face last year's national runner-up, No. 6 Cornell (11-3), at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in Ithaca, New York (ESPNU) in the opening round — the winner advances to the quarterfinals to play either top-seeded Duke or Delaware.

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"We have a really special roster," Conry said. "The main theme is more time together: We get to spend another week together and that's my only focus right now, is how to get another week."

The turning point

Depending whom you ask, you will get a different answer on the season's turning point.

For Conry, the season turned shortly after the campaign's most lopsided loss — an 18-8 defeat at then-No. 2 Notre Dame in mid-March. He said the team had to "take a hard look" at itself in the mirror and make sure it got "back to its purpose" and core fundamentals.

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The next game, a 15-11 loss to Johns Hopkins was far from perfect, with several self-inflicted mistakes; but he saw the mentality was there. Soon after, U-M got its first-ever win against Maryland, and the belief took hold.

"It springboarded us," Conry said.

For midfielder Peter Thompson, an Ann Arbor native who spent his first four years at Georgetown but transferred for his final year of eligibility, the moment was in the fourth game of the year against Marquette. U-M lost, 14-9, and a lengthy discussion among team members followed.

"How can we take that next step?" Thompson said of the message.

But for Boehm, the team's leader in goals (42) and points (67), there wasn't one specific inflection point when things suddenly clicked. Just a few weeks ago, Michigan was heading into its final regular season game with a losing record (2-3) in conference play.

But there's one thing they maintained the whole way that finally paid off during the tournament.

"Belief," Boehm said. "The execution wasn't always there, but the belief never wavered and I think that allowed us to have success recently. It's tough, you lose a few in a row ... games we felt we should've won, it's easy to have bad practices.

"But that belief is what kept us going and I think what led us to have as much success as we've had the past few weeks."

Nothing to lose

Cornell is on the short list of the nation's elite lacrosse programs.

The Big Red have arguably the best offensive player in the country in attack-man CJ Kirst, who had 63 goals and 19 assists and was named first-team All-American by USA Lacrosse Magazine. They also have one of the top long sticks in the NCAA in Gavin Adler; both made last month's watchlist for the the Tewaarton Trophy, awarded to the nation's top player.

Adler will likely shadow Boehm or U-M senior Josh Zawada, who is U-M's all-time leader in points and ranks second on the team this season in goals (32), assists (28) and points (60). Even if Adler neutralizes one of them, the Wolverines have other capable scorers, such as sophomore Ryan Cohen (56 points).

It's all part of the philosophy for U-M offensive coordinator Scott Bieda (the Big Ten Player of the Year at Rutgers in 2016): Just try to hit singles and then the home runs will come.

"(Adler) is obviously really good and he's picked up a lot of well deserved accolades, but if we attack everybody with six guys, I think that's a better way to look at it," Boehm reiterated, taking the focus away from his one-on-one matchup. "We're accustomed to good defenders and good defenses, so I think we just have to focus on us.

"I don't think there's one guy who can eliminate all six of us."

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U-M standout defenseman Andrew Darby will get the first crack at Kirst. Michigan will have a tough task on defense, which includes freshman Hunter Taylor in net. He took over for Shane Carr, who was second-team All-Big Ten a season ago, but struggled to find consistency in 2023.

On the one hand, it's easy to see a scenario in which U-M is just happy to be in the tournament and quickly bows out. But that's not the vibe players had after Tuesday's practice, on a sunny afternoon in Ann Arbor. Boehm said they like being the last of the students in Ann Arbor and aren't ready to leave yet. On Monday, he and a group of teammates had a three-on-three bowling night after some dinner.

Thompson wasn't at the bowling night, but feels the same way about this team. The graduate student is trying to put off his entrance into the real world as long as possible. He has a job lined up with a real estate development firm's advisory team in Chicago once the season is done.

"A lot less fun than playing lacrosse," he laughed. "I'll tell you that much."

U-M feels good about its chances of victory. The Wolverines enter the postseason having won four straight and are 8-3 when scoring 10 or more goals and 6-1 when scoring first.

They also have the best faceoff duo in the nation. Wietfeldt has won an NCAA-leading 66% (130-of-197) of his faceoffs while Nick Rowlett is at 57.4% (136-for-237). The more they possess the ball, the more opportunities for their high-efficiency offense — which ranks third in the NCAA in shooting percentage (34%).

The oddsmakers have U-M as a two-goal underdog to Cornell, but nobody had the Wolverines there in the first place.

"Why not us, right?" Conry said of how his team is entering the unchartered waters. "Everybody out there is doubting you, so why can't we do it? We put in the hard work, we ran the stadium stairs, we lifted a lot of weights, we're really good lacrosse players.

"I think it's been a galvanizing theme for us to say, 'Yeah, we may be new around the block, but why does it have to be about experience and traditional powerhouses? Why can't it be about us?' ... We all believe it."

Contact Tony Garcia at apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @realtonygarcia.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How Michigan men's lacrosse went from fledgling to NCAA tournament