DETROIT (3/14/2024) -- The University of Detroit Mercy men's lacrosse team will finally get a chance to wake up on a gameday in its own bed as the Titans welcome Mercer for its home and conference opener on Saturday.

Game time is set for Noon at Titan Field and will be streamed live on ESPN+. Live stats will also be available.

UDM has started the year with four straight games on the road. 

The Titans are coming off a tough 16-10 setback at Ohio State as the red, white, and blue had a second-period 5-0 run and trailed by two on a few occasions. Freshman Sean Donahue led the offense with a career-high four points on three goals and an assist, while junior Ryan Richters made a season-high 15 saves. 

Graduate senior Luke Majick leads the team with nine points and seven goals. Junior Sean Henige tops the team with six caused turnovers and is second with 11 ground balls, while Richters has made 51 total saves and leads the team with 15 GB's. 

Mercer is 1-4 on the year, with the lone win a 20-5 victory at home over Hampton. 

ALL-TIME SERIES VS. MERCER

• The Titans are 5-3 all-time against Mercer, but the Bears have claimed three of the last four meetings.
• The games have been close in recent years. Three of the last six games have been decided by just one goal, including an overtime contest, while two of the other three have been decided by four goals or less.
• UDM is 3-0 all-time at home, but all of the match-ups have been indoors at Ultimate Soccer Arenas, as Mercer has not been to the state of Michigan since 2015, with the last four meetings either on the road or on a neutral site.

TITANS PICKED EIGHTH BY COACHES

• Detroit Mercy was picked to finish eighth in the Atlantic Sun's Preseason Coaches Poll.
• UDM garnered 28 points to finish ahead of Queens and Lindenwood. 
• Utah took the top pick with 99 votes and nine first-place tallies, while Jacksonville was second, Air Force, Bellarmine, Robert Morris, Mercer and Cleveland State were the next six selections. The top six teams make the ASUN Championship - all held at Air Force this year - with the top two teams earning a bye to the semifinals. 

THE MAGIC MAN

• Graduate senior Luke Majick recorded his seventh career hat trick with three goals against VMI and is coming off a pair of goals at Ohio State. 
• He has scored a goal in all four games this season, five in a row dating back to last year and 25 of his 34 career games as a Titan. 
• He leads the team with seven goals and nine points and is approaching top 10 in school history in points (73) and goals (46).
• 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.

WEARING THE BIG "C"

• Detroit Mercy will have a trio of outstanding leadership this season as the Titans announced that graduate seniors Kyle Loken and Luke Majick as well as senior Noah Martin will have the honor of wearing the capital 'C' this year. 
• "These men have demonstrated to the team and the coaching staff how much they care about their fellow teammates and the program and continue to showcase what we have built this program on," said head coach Chris Kolon '09 (MBA). 
• Loken - just the fourth Titan to be named a team captain three times - has seen action in 40 games as a defensive midfielder and has recorded 22 caused turnovers and 70 ground balls to go with 10 goals and an assist. Last year, he tied for fourth on the team with a career-tying 24 ground balls and fifth with a career-high eight caused turnovers, scoring two goals. 
• Majick returns as captain for the second straight year. The midfielder has played in 34 games as a Titan and has posted 46 goals and 27 assists.
• Martin - a first-time captain - has been the anchor of the defense the last two years and has played in 35 games in his first three seasons, tallying 24 caused turnovers and 54 ground balls. Last season, he tied for the team lead with a career-best 13 caused turnovers and was second with a career-high 34 ground balls.

WE HAVE OUR DREW

• Sophomore Drew Kessenich scored two goals in the opener at Marquette, added a pair of assists against VMI and Ohio State and scored a goal at #16/14 Rutgers. 
• He had 10 assists last year and already has four this season with three goals. 
• He had 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 the five power-play goals.
• He scored a goal in nine games, with multi-strikes in seven, including seven points on five goals and two assists against Lindenwood and back-to-back three-goal games at Ohio State and Mercer. 

NEWBIES

• Freshman Sean Donahue notched his first career goal in the opener at Marquette and just tallied his first hat trick with an assist at Ohio State, while freshman Lucas Goeller registered his first assist and point against the Golden Eagles and scored his first goal against the Buckeyes. 
• Freshman Owen Miller scored his first goal against VMI, while rookie Sawyer Van Antwer notched his first marker at Rutgers. 

KING ME

• Junior Aidan Bishop has started the season with a pair of goals in three games. 
• He had two goals at Marquette and posted a career-best four points on two goals and two assists against VMI. He picked up four ground balls at Rutgers and raised his career best to five GB's with two goals and a caused turnover at Ohio State.  
• In his career, he has now played in 28 games with 26 starts and has 24 goals, eight assists, 43 ground balls and nine caused turnovers. 

NOLAN'S OUR MAN

• Junior Nolan Graalman started the season with a goal in each of the first two games after a sophomore season that saw him tally 23 points on the strength of 21 goals, including 15, fourth on the team.  
• He recorded a career-high three goals 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 a slow start, he had a caused turnover, three ground balls and scored his first goal at nationally-ranked Rutgers, and added a caused turnover and three GBs at Ohio State. 
• 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, last year.
• 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. 
• Mullett finished with a season-best seven ground balls and had a caused turnover at Jacksonville and had two caused turnovers and four ground balls against Marquette. 

AT THE FACEOFF

• The Titans return two faceoff specialists from last season in junior Billy Hart and sophomore Logan Flaherty and add a talented rookie in Joey Nawrocki. 
• Hart won 7-of-19 with three GB's at Marquette in the opener and 6-of-19 with four GB's at Ohio State, while Nawrocki won 7-of-20 against VMI and 9-of-18 at #16/14 Rutgers. 
• Hart has now won 114 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.
• Richters is coming off a season-high 15 saves at Ohio State, which came after 12 with five ground balls at #16/14 Rutgers, 13 versus VMI, and 11 saves at Marquette.
• 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. 

I WILL TAKE A HENIGE

• Junior Sean Henige had a career day with three caused turnovers and seven ground balls against VMI and tied his mark with three caused turnovers and two GB's at Ohio State.  
• In the opener, he had two ground balls at Marquette.
• He did not see any action as a freshman, but his practice paid off as he appeared in 13 games with 12 starts last year and was fourth on the team with 10 caused turnovers and also picked up 20 ground balls.
• He posted a season-high two caused turnovers and four ground balls at High Point, two caused turnovers and two GB's at Queens and four ground balls and two caused turnovers against Bellarmine. 

GIVE ME A GRANT

• Sophomore Kyle Grant just tied his career-high with two caused turnovers at Ohio State.
• As a freshman, he played in all 11 games and posted six caused turnovers, with a pair at VMI and at Queens. 

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.