Season Review: Men’s Lacrosse records 7th consecutive winning season, makes 2nd straight OAC Tournament semifinal appearance in 2022

By Wes Mayberry

ADA — The Ohio Northern men's lacrosse team finished 12-5 in 2022, extending what has been a successful run under seventh-year head coach Nat St. Laurent.

The Polar Bears have now posted a winning record in every season since they started play in 2016, and they capped 2022 with their second straight appearance in the Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament semifinals. They finished with the third-most victories in program history behind the 14-win season in 2018 and the 13-win campaign in 2019.

"We fell short of our ultimate goal of winning the league, but after losing five of our top seven scorers from the year before and five fifth-year seniors and coming out this year and having the third-most wins in program history is pretty impressive," St. Laurent said. "I'm really proud of our guys. Our assistant coaches did a great job getting them prepared and helping them grow, and the seniors did a great job of keeping a very talented young team together. I was really happy with where we ended the season and the growth that we showed."

ONU opened the season with three straight victories and won nine of its first 11 games, falling only to No. 2 Salisbury (Md.) and No. 10 Gettysburg (Pa.) in a pair of road matches during that stretch. Both of those teams went on to play in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament.

Northern finished 7-2 in conference play en route to earning the No. 3 seed for the OAC Tournament. The Polar Bears proceeded to defeat Mount Union 15-6 in the quarterfinals before falling 15-4 at eventual champion John Carroll in the semifinals.

ONU averaged just over 12 goals per game on the season and got at least one goal from 29 different players. Led by 28 goals apiece from senior Ben Gawronski (Dublin/Scioto) and sophomore Sebastian Michaud (Springboro), eight different players recorded double-digit goal totals. Sophomore John Lynn (Cincinnati/Sycamore) added 22 goals to go with 21 from sophomore Aidan Dempsey (Silver Spring, Md./St. John's College), 17 from junior Alex Reimer (Lancaster, N.Y.), 13 from freshman Caleb Bennett (New Market, Md./Linganore), 12 from freshman Nate Jablonski (Cary, Ill./Cary Grove) and 10 from junior Tyler Ferguson (Springboro).

"Having that many goal-scorers defines our selfless approach," St. Laurent said. "While we have players that can go off in any game, we share success. We have goals that we want to accomplish offensively, and to have it spread out like that shows that the program has a good balance."

Junior Riley O'Neal (Dumfries, Va./Forest Park) tallied a team-high 19 assists, which was tied for eighth in the OAC. Michaud and Jablonski added 15 and 10 assists, respectively.

Michaud finished with a team-leading 43 points, which was tied for 12th in the OAC. Gawronski (37), Lynn (29), Dempsey (28) and O'Neal (27) rounded out the team's top five point-scorers.

Freshman Luke Dittus (Wear Chester/St. Xavier) led the team with 52 ground balls, and senior Bradley Griffin (Troy, Mich./Bloomfield Hills) ranked sixth in the OAC with a team-best 27 caused turnovers.

In faceoffs, Dittus was 104-for-189 for a success rate of 55%, and sophomore Chad Calderwood (West Linn, Ore./Episcopal) was 90-for-161 for a success rate of 55.9%.

Junior Cole Zaferakis started all 17 games and played over 822 minutes in goal for the Polar Bears this season. Named to Inside Lacrosse's All-Freshman Team in 2020, Zaferakis made 111 saves in 2022 and posted a .485 save percentage and 8.61 GAA. He was named the OAC Defensive Player of the Week on March 28 after stopping seven of nine shots in ONU's 11-2 win over Mount Union, giving him three such honors in his career.

St. Laurent credited senior backups Matt Huizenga (New Albany) and Carson Smith (Forsyth, Ga./West Forsyth) along with freshman Robert Brunner (Cincinnati/Indian Hill), who was an All-State selection in high school, with pushing Zaferakis to play as well as he did.

"Cole's play in goal was sparked by the guys behind him. Those guys really pushed Cole to continue to grow, and his play during the season was great," St. Laurent said. "He kept us in a lot of games and had several games where he gave up single-digit goals, which was pretty impressive. We're going to count on him to grow as a leader, and we're excited for his future."

A starter in all 37 games in which he has played, Zaferakis has put himself among the top goalkeepers in program history. He will enter his senior season ranked second all-time in wins (24), saves (299) and minutes played (1,842:46) and fourth in GAA (8.79) while posting a .525 save percentage.

Zaferakis wasn't the only Polar Bear to close the season ranked inside the top 10 on ONU's career leaderboards. Gawronski ranks seventh all-time in goals (45) and eighth in points (64), and O'Neal is tied for sixth in assists (26). Griffin is fourth in program history in caused turnovers (49). Calderwood ranks fourth in faceoff wins (163) and is third in faceoff percentage (.560), and Dittus is sixth in faceoff wins (104) and fifth in faceoff percentage (.550).

Following the 2022 season, six Polar Bears earned All-OAC accolades. Griffin was an All-Conference First Team selection, and O'Neal and Michaud earned Second Team honors. Zaferakis, Gawronski and senior Ethan Falsone (Orchard Park, N.Y.) were Honorable Mention picks.

Falsone tallied two goals and two assists for four points on the season to go with 25 ground balls and 13 caused turnovers.

This marked the first career All-OAC honors for all six players.

"I was really happy for those six guys, especially seeing the seniors earn what they earned in their last year, and I'm excited to see what the underclassmen who got All-Conference will do to build off this season," St. Laurent said.

Eight Polar Bears also earned Academic All-OAC recognition this season. That group included O'Neal, Zaferakis, seniors Chris Cranston (Fairfax Station, Va./Lake Braddock) and Brian Dalidowicz (Dayton/Archbishop Alter) and sophomores Michael Duffy (Indianapolis, Ind./Bishop Chatard), Gus Mandel (Cincinnati/Seven Hills), Nate Strauf (Pittsford, N.Y./Mendon) and Bennett Michel (Perrysburg). Dalidowicz earned the honor for the third time in his career, and it was O'Neal's second such accolade.

As a team, Northern earned the USILA All-Academic award for the second straight year, and Dalidowicz was named a USILA Scholar All-American.

Looking ahead, St. Laurent is excited to see what next season holds for his team.

"We played four teams that made the NCAA Tournament this year, and we learned what it takes to compete at that level," he said. "The offseason is imperative for us to grow as young men both physically and mentally. I'm really excited to see this year's juniors lead as seniors next year, and our freshman and sophomore classes from this season are very talented, and we have a heck of a group coming in as freshmen next season. We're still pretty young, but I'm super excited to see what we can do next season."