DETROIT (4/11/2023) -- The University of Detroit Mercy men's lacrosse team will have a busy week on the road as the Titans travel to #14/16 Jacksonville on Wednesday. 

Game time is set for Noon at Rock Stadium and will be broadcast live on ESPN+ and will have live stats.

Detroit Mercy is coming off a come-from-behind 17-16 victory over Lindenwood to stay in the playoff hunt as the Titans are 2-7 overall and 2-3 in the Atlantic Sun. Jacksonville comes into the contest at 9-2 on the year and 4-1 in the league, with wins over Robert Morris, Mercer, Cleveland State and Queens and the lone setback to Utah. 

After his season-high seven points and five goals last week, freshman Drew Kessenich has taken over the team lead with 25 points. Senior Ryan Birney has 23 points on the strength of a team-high 20 goals, while senior Luke Majick has 22 points on 12 goals and a team-best 10 assists. All three rank in the top 20 in the conference in points per game.

Senior Tyler Hart came in the game last week and made three saves for the win over the Lions, while sophomore Jakob Hemme still leads the ASUN and is 21st in the country with 12.44 saves per game. Senior David Beacom still tops the squad with 11 caused turnovers and is eighth in the conference with 1.22 per contest to go with 18 ground balls, while junior Noah Martin has seven caused turnovers and a team-best 27 GB's. 

After the game, the Titans will travel to Air Force on Saturday. 

Game Nuggets: 

• The Titans are 4-3 all-time against Jacksonville and 1-3 on the road, with their last meeting a 15-14 road victory back on Feb. 1, 2020
• The Titans are 0-21 all-time against top-20 teams
• Detroit Mercy is looking to end a 14-game road losing streak, with their last road triumph a 13-5 win at Canisius on April 2, 2021
• The Titans rank third in the ASUN and 31st in the country with 8.22 caused turnovers per game as well as leading the league and eighth in the nation with 14.33 saves per game
• The Titans' 17 goals against Lindenwood were the most by the Titans since a 20-13 win against Bellarmine in 2021, a span of 13 games, while the eight turnovers were the second-fewest on the season behind the seven at Mercer
• Birney - who had a career-high five goals in the opener at VMI - had two older brothers who play for the Titans and were All-MAAC players in Mike Birney '15 and Sean Birney '18 as well as an older sister who played on the women's team and was All-ASUN in Kylie
• Birney is the current Titan leader with 56 points and 47 goals and has seven hat tricks in his career, and has been turning on the defense with six caused turnovers in his last three games, with a career-best three against RMU
• Going back to last season, Hemme has posted double-digit saves in 16 of his 19 career games, with a career-high and school-tying 28 saves at Michigan last season, and had 19 saves with a career-best seven ground balls against Utah to go with 16 saves against Marquette and 15 at Mercer
• Three Titans notched their first career goals in the season opener as freshmen Drew Kessenich and Zach Snider had two goals and sophomore Chase Mahabir scored his first collegiate marker, while freshman Ayden Snow had his first versus Marquette, sophomore Harold Skinner at Queens and freshman Logan Flaherty versus Lindenwood
• Kessenich posted back-to-back hat tricks, with three goals at nationally-ranked Ohio State and three goals and an assist at Mercer. He netted two goals and two assists against Utah and Robert Morris before his career performance of five goals and two assists against Lindenwood
• Senior Luke Majick was named All-MAAC Second Team in 2021 and was second on the team with 21 points and 13 goals and tied for first with eight assists last season. He has 55 points on 31 goals and 24 assists as a Titan, after transferring from Furman, and recorded a career day with seven points, four goals and three assists at Mercer and now has four career hat tricks
• Sophomore Nolan Graalman netted his first career hat trick with three goals against Utah and added a pair of strikes against Lindenwood.
• Sophomore Aidan Bishop has scored a goal in four of the last five games - with a career-high three against RMU - as he had just 10 goals and an assist all of last season
• Senior Ivan Progar Progar had just seven career goals coming into the Lindenwood game, but notched his first career hat trick with three markers
• Junior Kyle Loken scored his first goal of the season at Queens and came back with one last week against Lindenwood and now has nine goals in his career, with five of those as a sophomore, to go with 17 caused turnovers and 59 ground balls
• Beacom tallied a career-high three caused turnovers and tied his career best with four ground balls at Mercer, and scored his second career goal against Utah and added another versus Robert Morris. He came into the year with just five career caused turnovers but has 11 on the season
• Martin has tallied four caused turnovers and 25 ground balls in the last six games, recording a caused turnover and five GB's at Ohio State and two caused turnovers with a career-best six ground balls at Mercer
• Redshirt freshman Eoghan Mullett started the year with two caused turnovers at VMI and at High Point and had a career-high four ground balls against Marquette and Robert Morris
• Sophomore Sean Henige had a career-high two caused turnovers at High Point and at Queens and also a career-best four GB's at HPU
• Freshman Kyle Grant had two caused turnovers and two ground balls at High Point and also two caused turnovers at VMI
• Freshman Logan Flaherty won a season-high 10 faceoffs versus the Colonials and nine at Ohio State and at Queens, and scored his first collegiate goal off a faceoff win against Lindenwood
• The Titans have had a long history of family connections on the team and have another pair of brothers on this year's squad in senior Kyle Loken and sophomore Caden Loken and senior Tyler Hart and sophomore Billy Hart
• The Titans have a fairly young roster with 14 upperclassmen on their 47-man roster and have had 13 freshmen and sophomores start a game this year
• Detroit Mercy has student-athletes from 13 states as well as from Canada
• The Titans are in their second season as a member of the Atlantic Sun Conference after spending 12 seasons in the MAAC from 2010-2021, with their first year as an independent in 2009
• A leader of men on and off the field and a pioneer of the game, helping it flourish in the state of Michigan, Chris Kolon is in his 15th season on the sidelines – and ninth as a head coach - for Detroit Mercy in 2022 and holds a career mark of 40-65. His 15 seasons mean that he has been with the program since its birth, first as an assistant before assuming the head coaching duties. On June 2, 2014, he was tabbed the program's interim head coach and named the permanent head coach on July 14. During his time with Detroit Mercy, The Titans posted their first three winning seasons and led the team to a school record in overall (9) and conference victories (5) in 2018. He has coached 4 USILA Scholar All-Americans, 2 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans, seven (7) Senior CLASS Award Nominees, including two that went on to the final ballot for All-American accolades, 47 All-Conference players, five (5) LSM's of the Year, three (3) Rookie of the Year's, two (2) Defensive Players of the Year and one (1) Offensive Player of the Year. He has tutored 15 players that have gone on to get drafted in the MLL, NLL and PLL and 19 that have played in all three professional lacrosse leagues. In 2019, he was named an assistant coach with the Atlas Lacrosse Club in the brand-new Premier Lacrosse League. In his seven years as a head coach with the team in the MAAC, Detroit Mercy made the MAAC Championships five times, reaching the title game in 2018. His first-ever win was a memorable one as Detroit Mercy upended Ohio State, 9-8, on March 7, 2015. The win was the first by the Titans over Ohio State - who were receiving votes in both the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll and the USILA Coaches Poll and would go on to play in the NCAA Tournament later that season