DETROIT (2/12/2024) -- The University of Detroit Mercy men's lacrosse team will start year number 16 on the road as the Titans visit Jesuit-rival Marquette on Tuesday.

Game time is set for 3:00 p.m. (EST) and will be broadcast live on FLO Sports.

Detroit Mercy returns 29 letterwinners from a year ago, including four of its top five scorers. Graduate senior Luke Majick and sophomore Drew Kessenich tied for the team lead with 31 points as Kessenich had a team-best 21 goals and 10 assists and Majick posted 20 goals and a team-high 11 helpers. Junior Nolan Graalman was third on the team with 15 goals and 16 points and junior Aidan Bishop had 13 points with eight goals and five helpers.

The Titans also bring back most of their starting defensemen, with senior Noah Martin, juniors Sean Henige and Joey Schmaltz, and sophomores Eoghan Mullett and Kyle Grant. Junior Evan DeVito is also back after missing last season and starting all 11 games in 2022.

Short stick defensive midfielder Kyle Loken returns as do the Titans' top two faceoff specialists in junior Billy Hart and sophomore Logan Flaherty. Junior Jakob Hemme has been the main goalie in net the last two years as well. 

The roster is balanced with five seniors, 15 juniors, nine sophomores, and 17 redshirt or true freshmen. 

Marquette is 2-0 on the season as the Golden Eagles won at Air Force, 12-6, and defeated Lindenwood, 16-5. 

Following the game, the Titans will have a couple of weeks off before playing VMI at a neutral site game in Columbus, Ohio, on March 2. 
 

SEASON #16 FOR TITAN LAX

• The first-ever game for the Titans was on Feb. 7, 2009, when the red, white and blue fell at Ohio State, 21-1. Scott Harris netted the first goal in school history.
• In the first 15 years, Detroit Mercy won the 2013 MAAC Championship and advanced to the championship game in 2011 and 2018 before moving to the Atlantic Sun in 2022. 
• The red, white, and blue posted their first winning season in 2016 at 8-6 and broke that mark with a 9-7 record in 2018 and had another winning mark at 8-7 in 2019. 
• While in the MAAC for 13 years, they have qualified for the postseason 11 times - missing only the 2010 campaign and the canceled pandemic season of 2020 - including trips to the championship game in three seasons. 

LATE START

• The Feb. 13 start is actually one of the latest opening days in Titan history.
• Technically, the latest start was in 2021 as sports were making their comeback from the pandemic and the Titans played at Marist on March 6.
• Under normal circumstances, the latest was a Feb. 16 beginning in 2014 at home against Mercer.
• UDM also started on Feb. 13 in 2016 at Ohio State.

ALL-TIME IN SEASON OPENERS

• Detroit Mercy has dropped three-straight season openers and is 4-11 all-time in season starts, with three of those four wins at home as the Titans defeated Mercer, 11-10, in 2014, Ohio State 9-8 in 2015, and Jacksonville, 9-8, in 2019. 
• The Titans are 1-10 in road season openers and 1-14 all-time in road openers, with the lone win coming in 2020, a 15-14 thriller at Jacksonville. 
• Five of those losses have been at Ohio State, two to Delaware and one at Notre Dame. 

ALL-TIME SERIES VS. MARQUETTE

• The Titans are 1-9 all-time against Marquette, with the lone victory in 2019, 15-12 on the road. 
• The nine meetings have actually come in four different states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Ohio) as the two schools were part of the Midwest Classic regular season showcase for a few years. 
• The Titans are 1-3 all-time on the road in the match-up as Marquette defeated the red, white and blue 14-9 in its first-ever home game in 2013.  

AGAINST OUR FELLOW JESUITS

• Detroit Mercy is 15-22 all-time against Jesuit schools with the 1-9 mark against Marquette, 7-6 versus Canisius, 7-5 mark against Manhattan and 0-1 vs. Georgetown and Saint Joseph's. 
• Other Jesuit schools sponsoring Division I lacrosse include Fairfield, Holy Cross, Loyola Maryland and DI newcomer LeMoyne.  

BORN AND RAISED IN MICHIGAN

• While the Titans recruit nationally - witnessed by 12 states plus Canada on their 46-man roster - there is no arguing that Detroit Mercy loves to keep players in its home state as 28 of its 46 players (60.8%) hail from the Great Lakes State.
• The next on the list is Wisconsin with four (4), California (3), Ohio (2), Colorado (1), Illinois (1), Maryland (1), Nevada (1), North Carolina (1), Texas (1), Vermont (1) and along with one from Canada (1). 

ROAD WOES

• The Titans have played over half of their history on the road in 108 of 215 career contests.
• UDM is 30-121 all-time in true road games and has dropped 16 straight, with the last road win at Canisius, 13-5, in 2021.

VS. THE BIG EAST

• The Titans are 1-11 all-time against members of the BIG EAST Conference, with a 1-9 mark versus Marquette and 0-1 records against Denver and Georgetown.

MAJICK EARNS PRESEASON HONOR

• Graduate senior Luke Majick started the year honored by his conference peers as he was named to the Preseason All-ASUN Team as a midfielder after a poll by the league's head coaches. 
• A team captain, he played in all 13 games with 11 starts last season and tied for the team-high with a career-best 31 points, ranking 18th in the ASUN with 2.38 points per game. He led the team with a career-best 11 assists and was third with a career-high 20 goals.
• He also tied for the team lead with three man-up goals and had 11 ground balls and two caused turnovers.
• During the year, he posted a career-high seven points on a career-best four goals with three assists at Mercer. He also had a few other hat tricks, coming up with three goals, three ground balls, and a caused turnover versus Robert Morris, two goals and a career-high four assists against Lindenwood, three markers at Air Force, and four goals with an assist and two ground balls at Cleveland State.

WE HAVE OUR DREW

• Sophomore Drew Kessenich returns after a fine freshman season, where he was named to the Atlantic Sun All-Freshman Team.
• He played in all 13 games with 11 starts and tied for the team lead with 31 points and was second with 21 goals and 10 assists to go with 19 ground balls. He also topped the squad with five man-up goals, ranking fifth in the league and 43rd in the nation with five power-play goals.
• He scored a goal in nine games, with multi-strikes in seven of them, including seven points on five goals and two assists against Lindenwood and back-to-back three-goal games at Ohio State and Mercer. 

NOLAN'S OUR MAN

• Junior Nolan Graalman has tallied 23 points on the strength of 21 goals, including 15 last season, fourth on the team. 
• He recorded a career-high three goals and three ground balls against Utah and tied his goal mark with three strikes at Cleveland State. 

THAT'S RIGHT I SAID OWEN

• Sophomore Eoghan Mullett- pronounced Owen - is back on defense after securing a starting spot early last year after transferring from Bryant. He led the team with 36 ground balls and tied for the team lead with 13 caused turnovers, ranking 10th in the ASUN with 3.0 ground balls per game and 11th with 1.08 caused turnovers per contest.
• He registered a caused turnover in 11 games, with two in three contests, and collected a ground ball in every game, with at least three on six occasions. An aggressive player, he also tied for the team lead with five penalties.
• Mullett finished with a season-best seven ground balls and had a caused turnover at Jacksonville. He had two caused turnovers and four ground balls against Marquette and a season-high two caused turnovers and five ground balls against Bellarmine. 

AT THE FACEOFF

• The Titans return two faceoff specialists from last season in junior Billy Hart and sophomore Logan Flaherty.
• Hart has won 101 career faceoffs and was at 41.0% last season, claiming 64-of-156 with 24 ground balls. He won a career-best 10-of-22 with four ground balls and scored his first goal on his first career shot at Jacksonville. He took 9-of-17 with a season-high five ground balls at Air Force and tied his career-high winning 10-of-19 with five GB's at Cleveland State.
• Flaherty tied for the team lead with 63 wins, picking up 15 ground balls, as a rookie. He tallied 9-of-15 with a caused turnover at Queens, was 8-of-17 at Air Force and won six faceoffs against Lindenwood, where he also notched his first goal. 

GUARDING THE NET

• Juniors Jakob Hemme and Ryan Richters are the top two goalies on the roster, a roster that has five netminders.
• Hemme ranks fourth in school history with 271 saves and second with 12.9 saves per game. He saw action in 11 games with 10 starts last season and led the team with 137 saves - 10th in school history - and a .479 save percentage - sixth in the ASUN - and was third with 28 ground balls. He topped the conference and was 19th in the nation with 12.45 saves per game, fifth in school history, and was 18th in the ASUN with 2.55 ground balls per game. 
• Hemme recorded double-digit saves in nine games, with a season-high 19 saves and a career-best seven ground balls versus Utah and tallied 14 saves, four ground balls and a career-best two caused turnovers at Jacksonville.
• In his career, he has played in 21 games and has double-digit saves in 18 of them, tying a school record with 28 at Michigan in 2022. 
• Meanwhile, Richters hails from California and played as a freshman at Grand Canyon and as a sophomore at Concordia University in California. Last season, he made 48 saves and posted a 62.3% save percentage, helping Concordia to a MCLA title. 
• He also played for Team Latvia at the 2023 World Lacrosse Championships and was nominated to the All-World Team. 

A NEW HOME IN 2025

• Detroit Mercy accepted an invitation to join the Northeast Conference (NEC), starting with the 2025 season. 
• After a two-year hiatus, NEC commissioner Noreen Morris announced that the NEC will reinstate men's lacrosse as the league's 25th championship sport for the 2024-25 academic year.
• The league will feature three full-time members in Le Moyne, LIU and Wagner, along with affiliates Detroit Mercy, Cleveland State, Robert Morris and VMI.