College Lacrosse's Top Senior Midfielders in 2020

I can’t believe it’s already March. It feels like just last week that I started the spring semester and began to get this whole lacrosse media company and podcast thing all figured out. My partner Willy Keating and I got our first show uploaded about a month ago, and we haven’t looked back. Tomorrow’s show will mark our ninth thus far, and we hope to bring you many more as we approach the Entry Draft, College Draft, and, before you know it, the 2020 PLL season.

This also got me thinking about how it’s unbelievably already March and that a month of college lacrosse has already past us by. A month of really good lacrosse at that. The Ivy League has been phenomenal, with Princeton’s Michael Sowers and Cornell’s Jeff Teat leading two of the best teams in the country, Sowers averaging eight points per game and Teat scoring 20 points over his last three games. Penn State superstars Mac O’Keefe and Grant Ament have combined for 37 goals and 72 points through six games, and Maryland’s Jared Bernhardt has at least four points in each of his six contests. Ethan Walker has three points in each of Denver’s games this season, including back-to-back four-goal performances. Division I’s newest stud, Merrimack’s Charlie Bertrand, also has been lighting up scoreboards, scoring six points in three of six games this season.

But this feature isn’t about the attackmen. We already have an article dedicated to them on our website, and throughout the rest of March and April, as we approach the PLL College Draft on April 21, Willy and I will be talking extensively about each one of these guys as well as the players that I didn’t mention above on our podcast, Behind the Back, and in future articles on our website.

See today, we talk about the midfielders. Whether you play as an offensive, defensive, or, as we’re seeing more of today, a two-way midfielder, you need to possess a certain gear of speed, endurance, and agility. Picture it like a car: you don’t want a simple old sedan that struggles to push six or seven RPMs, you want the fastest and most powerful sports car that money can buy.

These ten guys below are, for what they do, the best that money can buy.

As a result of the league’s unique playoff format, which features a competitive bracket to determine college draft seeding, the first round is set to have Chris Bates and the Archers select first overall, followed by the Atlas, Waterdogs, Chrome, Chaos, Redwoods and the defending champion Whipsnakes. The Waterdogs are projected to have the first pick in rounds two, three and four, and the rest of the pack will be in the same order as round one with exception to the handful of picks swapped in the eight trades that we’ve seen so far leading up to this draft.

With the league’s Entry Draft just ten days away, it is going to be interesting to see which teams come out still in need of midfield talent. As of March 9, there are only two midfielders, Christian Mazzone and TJ Comizio (SSDM), registered into the Entry Draft player pool, which at this time sits at eight players. Obviously, we expect that number to rise, but how many more midfielders can we, and the league’s coaches, expect to see available on Monday, March 16? That unknown may lead some coaches, especially those in need of midfield depth, to approach the draft and address other positions, saving the midfield position for the College Draft.

That wouldn’t be too bad of an idea. These ten guys are putting up huge numbers in their senior seasons, and I wouldn’t imagine it’s going to slow down anytime soon.

Playing with and against pro lacrosse players doesn’t seem to be anything new for Ohio State’s Tre Leclaire. The 6’2” Canadian won a Silver medal with Team Canada at the 2018 FIL World Championship, scoring three goals and adding one assist in seven games. There were a total of 49 players in the PLL in 2019 that played with or against Leclaire in Israel, and it didn’t seem to phase him one bit.

Leclaire, who came to Ohio State as a box lacrosse player from Canada’s British Columbia, became an immediate impact as a freshman for the Buckeyes. He was the Big 10 Freshman of the Year in 2017, leading his team with 49 goals and finishing second in points with 65. As a sophomore, he led his team in points with 37, and as a junior, he became just the 12th player in Ohio State program history to score 100 career goals.

Thus far in his senior season, he has scored 21 goals in six games and is shooting an impressive 40%. As another guy that plays both midfield and attack, coupled with a phenomenal start to 2020, the three-time All-Big 10 second-teamer is solidifying himself as one of the top prospects on the College Draft big board.

Ryan Terefenko is a four-year teammate of Leclaire and, like the Canadian, he has been a force to be reckoned with in the Big 10, but in a slightly different way. Terefenko is one of the nation’s top short-stick defensive midfielders (SSDM), and in six games this season, he has scooped up 23 ground balls and added six points. The two-time First Team All-Big 10 selection acts as a major transition problem for defenses, and throughout his career, he’s been able to make defenses pay for being lazy when he makes his way down the field. He has scored 15 goals in his career and has tallied 19 assists, but what makes him most special is his ability to battle for and win loose balls. He has 130 ground balls in his career, and teams that are looking for an impact defensive midfielder that can win possessions and push the ball in transition might look to Terefenko to fill their void.

Another one of the nations top SSDM’s is Syracuse’s Peter Dearth. The 6’3”, 220-pound Ridgefield, Connecticut product, often one of the biggest players on the field, has 11 ground balls, two goals, and a caused turnover this season. After beginning his sophomore season as a first-line offensive midfielder, Dearth switched back to defense in order to help his team address positional needs. The move proved to be a successful one, as he went on to cause 20 turnovers, scoop up 53 ground balls, and score 12 points over his sophomore and junior seasons. A two-time captain, Dearth’s physicality and reach has made him one of the most dominant players in the game. A dangerous threat in transition, he uses his athleticism and is able to help create in early offense, and in 2019, he led all defensive players with six goals and he posted a team-best shooting percentage of 40% (minimum ten shots).

Opposite from Dearth is Jamie Trimboli. The 5’11” senior has 17 goals and three assists in 2020 and he has been shooting an impressive 47%. In his career, Trimboli has 75 goals and 24 assists, putting him just one point shy of 100 career points. Once he reaches that mark, he’ll become just the third Syracuse midfielder in the last decade to reach 100 points, joining the Redwoods JoJo Morasco (155) and the Chaos’ Sergio Salcido (107).

Bryan Costabile is approaching the 100-goal mark. He has averaged 36 goals over the past two seasons, which has awarded him back-to-back All-ACC honors. As a freshman, he started in all 15 games and found the back of the net 17 times, and as a junior in 2019, he led his team in points and goals and he scored in every game for the Irish, finishing with a Notre Dame single-season record in goals in a season by a midfielder with 42. Through four games this season, he has eight goals and three assists, and he is three goals shy of 100.

While Costabile and Trimboli are approaching the century goal and point marks, Virginia’s Dox Aitken has just surpassed the 150-point mark. Aitken owns the single-season record for points (52) and goals (44) by a midfielder, and he owns the career record for goals by a midfielder in UVA history. He scored a goal in all 20 games in 2019, including multiple goals in 17 of them and a hat trick in seven of them. He has continued that goal-scoring streak into 2020, as he has a goal in each of his five games this season. The wrinkle for Aitken is that he has committed to play football at Villanova this fall, so even if a PLL team does draft him in April, he will most likely miss the 2020 season (similar to how Pat Spencer missed the entire 2019 season after being selected by the Archers to play basketball).

Tanner Cook is another Canadian whose stock has been rising this season. The 6’3”, 215-pound Ontario native has scored 42 goals and has 13 assists over his three seasons with North Carolina, but this season he’s scored 17 goals and has seven assists over six games. He most recently scored six goals in a win over Furman, and he is on pace to score more goals, assists, and points this season than he has had in the last three seasons.

Colgate's Griffin Brown is the second guy on this list that is just shy of 100 goals, sitting at 98. Brown has received consecutive All-Patriot League Second Team honors, and he has led his team in goals in each of the last three seasons. Another guy that plays attack and midfield, he has 21 goals and five assists through six games this season and at least four goals in four of six games this season.

Connor Kirst is another big name on our list. After 11 goals and seven assists as a freshman, the back-to-back Big East First Team honoree has scored 56 goals and 28 assists as a sophomore and junior. He has 17 goals through seven games this season for Villanova, including a hat trick in five of them, and he is on pace to score more goals, assists, and points than in his Big East Midfielder of the Year season last season.

Our last player is Massachusett’s Jeff Trainor. Trainor has scored 72 goals and 124 points over his career, and in 2020 he has ten goals and five assists over six games. He’s a First Team All-CAA selection in back-to-back seasons and was the first UMass midfielder since 2003 to reach 100 points.

Although it seems like the attackmen might dominate this year's College Draft, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a couple of midfielders go off the board early. There are a handful of really talented players that could be major impacts for any of the league’s seven teams. Over the remainder of this week, we will continue to preview the top college players by position, and in the month leading up to the College Draft on April 21, we will have full mock drafts and analysis on the best senior lacrosse talent in 2020. Stay tuned.