Chicago, Ill. - After several pre-season practices in and out of the cold Chicago winter, the Illinois Tech men's lacrosse team will travel to Nashville, Tennessee this weekend to begin their 2025 season with a pair of non-conference, neutral site matches in the Music City Classic.

For Head Coach Dan Sharbaugh, who is in his sixth season leading the men's lacrosse program, the opening of a new season always carries an element of mystery to it.

"I don't know that I ever feel good going into the season opener," said Sharbaugh. "Just a lot of question marks. No matter how experienced you are, there's always pieces to add in.
So it's exciting while at the same time nerve wracking."

While the team returns several starters, including some high-performers on the offensive side of the ball, over half of the team, 15 out of 29 players total, are freshmen this season. Conversely, the 2024 team only had five freshmen out of a roster of 22 players. 

Despite the major influx of youth on the team, Sharbaugh feels the group will give the team a lift.

"It's a good freshmen class. I think they will contribute immediately in a lot of areas," Sharbaugh said. "It's a fun group, an exciting group, and I think we are all excited to finally play for real this weekend." 

The strength of the team will be on the offensive side of the ball, with five players returning who scored in double figures in goals last season, including senior Jackson Brass with 32 goals and junior Diego Sosa with 31 goals scored. Senior Yano Porter added 21 goals last season.

While Sharbaugh knows his offensive unit provides more certainty at this point, he expects the defensive unit to grow as the season goes along.

"I do think the defensive side(will eventually grow), and hopefully starting with our face-off unit," said Sharbaugh. "We brought in some freshmen face-off guys. Over the last few years, (face-offs) have been a major issue for us. If we can get our face-off number to 40%-50%, it will give our defense a break and give our offense a little bit more of a leash to try and do some things."

Sharbaugh also noted that with Kyle Johnson returning as the starting goaltender, along with Ryan Littler and two freshman goalies adding depth, it has forced the offense to focus on shot selection, as the quartet of goalies are saving bad shots the offense serves up during practices.

The Scarlet Hawks are coming off a season in which they went 6-2 in Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) play, and 8-8 overall. The Hawks made the NACC post-season tournament for the second consecutive season, as the number three seed in 2024. The Scarlet Hawks were projected to finish in fifth place in conference in the NACC Pre-season poll, with defending champion Aurora the prohibitive favorite to take first place.

Sharbaugh knows the conference will be another tough battle this year, especially with the additions of Lawrence, Cornell College, Lake Forest, and Dubuque as NACC affiliate members. The conference now stands at 12 teams compared to 9 in the 2024 season.

"It's a big conference now," said Sharbaugh. "We have 11 conference games now, whereas in past years it was seven or eight, maybe. So it's one of those things where it's crazy, but at the same time, we've played these teams already. We've always played Cornell College. We both played Lake Forest the last few years.We've also played Dubuque in the past. And then Lawrence is a brand new program, so obviously we haven't played them yet. The added teams gives more certainty as far as scheduling goes. It doesn't allow you as many out of conference games, but I think adding in some teams that are pretty competitive and have some stability themselves will provide stability for our conference" said Sharbaugh.

The Scarlet Hawks open play this weekend in the Music City Classic, with a match against Hendrix College on Saturday at 10:00 AM, followed by a match with Transylvania on Sunday, February 16th at 10:00 AM.