The Bison men’s lacrosse team will look to pick up the heat right where they left it just before conference play, coming off a 5-1 shortened 2020 season.

This year, the Patriot League is split into two divisions, the north and south. The Bison will play in the South Division along with Loyola, Lafayette, Lehigh and Navy. The top teams in both divisions will play for the Patriot League Championship. The Bison are projected to be sixth in the Patriot League, but will look to outperform that preseason ranking. The Blue and Orange received votes to be placed in the US Lacrosse Top 20 rankings posted on Feb. 8.

Even after losing top point producer Will Yorke ’20 on attack, the Bison returns the next top three threats on offense, starting with Alston Tarry ’22, a junior who had 26 points (12 goals, 14 assists) in the 2020 campaign. Joining Tarry includes Tommy Sopko ’21, with 21 points (16 goals, 5 assists) and Harry Wellford ’23, with 12 points in 2020 (10 goals, 2 assists). Tarry, Sopko and Wellford all started the first 6 games of 2020. Wellford was listed as a Preseason All Patriot League member, as well as an USILA Preseason All American “Honorable Mention” for the upcoming 2021 season.

The Bison’s back line returns defender Travis Talarico ’22, who finished with 15 caused turnovers and 23 ground balls in his sophomore season. Talarico was named an Inside Lacrosse Preseason All American “Honorable Mention”, and an USILA Preseason All American “Honorable Mention.” Behind Talarico, goalie Ben Clark ’21 mans the net for the 2021 season, after starting all six games in 2020, with a 9.37 goals against average and a .538 save percentage. He made 63 saves and reached the double digits in stops three times.

“We are excited to build off what we did in the few games we played last year. We return a lot of key guys and have some good additions in the freshmen class as well as transfers. We’ve had some hiccups in the fall but whenever we step on the field we look good and we get better every day,” Tarry said. “We are excited to tackle this year and how weird it is going to be and we are really excited to get on the field and show what we can do.”

The Bison will try to pick up right where they left off for the 2021 season. They will host the Colonials of Robert Morris on Saturday, Feb. 20 at Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium here in Lewisburg. Their first Patriot League matchup will be against Colgate the following week, in Hamilton, N.Y.