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The UMass Lowell men's lacrosse team will begin its inaugural Division I campaign against Yale of the Ivy League on Saturday, Feb. 14 at 12 p.m. at Clint Frank Field in New Haven, Conn.

"We are thrilled to represent UMass Lowell in Division I lacrosse, and we look forward to building a strong foundation over the next couple of years," first-year Head Coach Ed Stephenson said.  "We are very proud of our lacrosse legacy and we are honored to be the newest members of the River Hawk lacrosse family."

The River Hawks are entering their first season in the America East Conference as a Division I program and Stephenson says that comes with unique challenges.

"We won't have the experience or the maturity of a seasoned veteran team but we've had several guys show good understanding and poise thus far," Stephenson said. "As a coaching staff, we understand that building a program takes time so we are both patient and demanding."

GOALS

Stephenson has made clear the identity that he wants from his team both on and off the field. In regards to their off the field success, his team has already excelled in the classroom, posting a 3.11 team GPA for the fall semester.

"We've emphasized the importance of character, academic success, leadership, commitment, teamwork and sportsmanship, as they constitute the cornerstone of our program," said Stephenson.  Our young men have already set a strong precedent in the classroom in our first semester and we want to continue that in the spring."

"We want to be creative and unselfish on offense, and play sound fundamental and aggressive defense. We field mostly freshmen, so we will obviously have much improvement to make on the field. Our goals are relatively simple, we want to improve our field IQ, strength and skills each week.

LEADERSHIP

On a team with 28 freshmen, Stephenson is looking for leadership up and down his roster. He named four captains for this year's squad including sophomore attackman Martin Winter (Lake Oswego, Ore.), freshman midfielder Jon Phillips (Delta, B.C.), freshman attackman Sean Tyrrell (Calgary, Alberta) and freshman midfielder Jared Zaniewski (Sandwich, Mass.).

"We picked our four captains in the fall based on off-the-field leadership, which we were really impressed by, said Stephenson. "Then once we returned from winter break, we had a group of players that hadn't stepped up before start to become leaders, so we have a good nucleus to build from for this season."

THE SCHEDULE

After their season opener at Yale, the River Hawks will host their first home game as a Division I program on Saturday, Feb. 21 against Siena. In total, UMass Lowell will host four non-conference games, play away for three, and end the season with a neutral site fixture against VMI at Marywood University.

"We are going to concentrate on ourselves and improving each week, and our schedule allows us to do that," said Stephenson. "Our non-conference schedule will provide us with plenty of exciting experiences and chances to build before conference season."

 UMass Lowell's first ever America East matchup will take place on March 14 on the road at Hartford. A week later the River Hawks will play host to Vermont in their conference home opener for 2015. With any conference, rivalries are important and Stephenson says they will blossom quickly.

"Once we get into conference play, the rivalries will become automatic," said Stephenson. "Every game I've coached in the America East Conference for 12 years has been a dogfight and it always will. So it won't take us long to build rivalries and embrace the traditions that this conference stands for."