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Previewing The Meghan Puls Classic – Fall Ball at Stevenson

Stevenson University hosts an annual fall ball event called the Meghan Puls Classic, in honor of Assistant Coach George Puls’ daughter, Meghan. The tourney benefits the Meghan Puls Foundation, which helps families and children through supporting organizations in the areas of health services and research, youth recreation and education.

Proceeds from the fundraiser benefit the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center and Lions Camp Merrick diabetes camp. Other beneficiaries include The Seton Keough High School Scholarship, Marillac and Focus programs. Admission to the event is FREE, but a $5 donation is suggested!

Below you can find information on each of the teams competing on Sunday, October 21st in Owings Mill, MD. Stevenson, F&M, Goucher, Elizabethtown and Virginia Wesleyan will all be in attendance. It should be a GREAT day of high level DIII lacrosse!

School: Stevenson University

Head Coach: Paul Cantabene          

2012 Record: 18-5 (Ranked 5th Final USILA Coaches Poll)

Info from Coach Cantabene: Our main goal for our gall ball experience is to give the student/athletes a chance to show what they have learned over our fall ball training. It also allows us to see how the players react in game situations and so we can have an better idea of how we will approach our preseason.

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We are all about Family at Stevenson and we want to support the people who support us the most and that is how the Classic came about. We use to do a Tournament ball for another one of my assistants Brian Myers to help raise money for his dad and his family.

Once Brian moved on to another job we wanted to continue to have a tournament and I knew Tim Puls had his Foundation for his daughter, and he has been such a great person and assistant for me, that I thought it would be a great idea to help him out. I just thought it would be a great thing for Tim and his family to have an event to help raise some money so his foundation can continue to do their great work.

Some of our players to watch are all of our defenders: Parker Bratton, Ryan Rubenstein, Warren Pumprey and Kyle Holechek who had such a great year for us last year as one of the best defensive units in the country. Plus, we return our whole attack who were so great last year in Tyler Reid, Steven Banick, Chris DaShield and Pat Candon. We are expecting to play our usually high pace organized chaos system with high pressure defense.

It’s been a great style for us and we hope that we can continue to play some of the most exciting lacrosse in the nation. But, overall, we hope to have a fun day for a great cause.

School: Goucher College

Head Coach: Brian Kelly

2012 Record: 18-2 (Ranked 10th Final USILA Coaches Poll)

Info from Coach Kelly: We are looking to evaluate new talent and returning talent in game situations versus quality competition. Additionally, we are looking forward to playing under the new rules adopted and see what if any impact that has on our style of lacrosse.

We participated in the event last year and were very pleased with the organization of the event, the great cause it supports and the quality of competition.

At attack Connor Annunziato, Midfield Michael Morgan and defensively Andrew Schwartz are all newcomers to look out for. Returning players expected to keep us successful would be Goalie Connor Mishaw and Midfielder Steve Patterson

School: Franklin & Marshall

Head Coach: Todd Cavallaro

2012 Record: 10-5

Info from Coach Cavallaro: We are looking forward to playing against some of the best programs in Division III. We also want to see how our strong leadership and upperclassmen help develop our very talented younger players. This will be a great test athletically, but more importantly it is an honor to play in the Meghan Puls Lacrosse Classic.

As a team, we feel our strength and depth at the midfield will be exciting, our attack and defense will have some new looks that will certainly get tested. Our program is very excited to be a part of this day in honor of Meghan Puls.

School: Virginia Wesleyan College

Coach: JP Stewart

2012 Record: 10-7

Info from Coach Stewart: We are really looking forward to a great day of competition.  Anytime we step on the field I want to see how hard our guys will compete – regardless of the situation.  The scores won’t be my biggest concern, but seeing the competitive nature of our guys will be big for us.

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This is a big deal for us because it is the “Meghan Puls Classic”.  The cause hits close to home.  Travis Puls, Meghan’s youngest brother played for us for 4 years (2009-2012), is a 2012 graduate of Virginia Wesleyan.  He was a 3 time All-ODAC selection as a Marlin Lacrosse player.  The Puls family – Mom Cassie, Dad Tim (Coach Puls at Stevenson U), & oldest brother Tim have been a big, big part of our program over the past 5 years & hopefully will continue to be a big, big part of what we do down here.

Last year our entire team wore a “Puls Classic” jersey with the #21 as a show of our support for the family.  #21 was Meghan’s jersey # throughout her sports career, & after she passed away Travis wore the #.  He was #21 for 4 years here at VWC.  On top of our support for the cause & the family it is a great day of Division III lacrosse & we’re honored to be included in the event again!

On offense we return 6 of our top 8 scorers from last spring – Nick Pappas, Andrew Adamson, Mikey Connors, Ian Shankland, Joe Papetti, & Mike Moran, so I’m excited to see if those guys can continue to improve.  We have a couple of other sophomores in Chad Kooser & Devynn Kelly who I’m really looking forward to watching this fall also.

On defense we return a couple of starters from 2012 in Brandon Kirklin & Paul Reneissen who both work really, really hard so it’ll be great to see them compete.  Mikey Connors & Sam Limpert were 2 of our top face-off players last spring, & they both love to play lacrosse.  Corey Bauer had a great junior season in the goal & worked really hard this summer to improve.  It’ll be a fun group to watch.

Our fall-ball lacrosse is always a great way to look at different offenses & defenses, so we’ll do a lot of different things this fall.  The 1 thing we’ll always remain consistent with is our belief in an up-tempo, transition based style of lacrosse.  We’re really excited about a bunch of the new rules, & hope to have fun playing with them this fall & at the MPLC.

School: Elizabethtown College

Head Coach: Terry Corcoran

2012 Record: 7 – 8

Info from Coach Corcoran: We have a number of younger players that we want to expose to top level college lacrosse.  It is also an honor to support the Meghan Puls foundation and all the great work it does.

We return a veteran defense and have four goalies competing for the goal position. We will als be playing a large number of freshmen ithroughout the day.