With fallball wrapped up and the doldrums of the preseason upon us, Ohio State finds itself in a familiar position. There are a ton of new faces to be integrated into the offense, the defense looks uncertain thanks to another injury to its best player, faceoff looks to be below average to weak, and there’s unwarranted optimism to be had based on fall scrimmage results.
Most of this information comes from Quint Kessenich’s recap a month ago (link below), and is informative of just about nothing for the team. It does shed some light on what the staff is looking at from a personnel standpoint. The clips shown on social media have been interesting to view, as well.
The Good
Per the Kessenich article, Ohio State won both of its scrimmages. The matchup with the Tar Heels was tied at half, but the Buckeyes managed to build the lead to 5 goals by the final whistle. UNC apparently didn’t play the best offensive player in the program, however. Owen Duffy sat out and it throws cold water all over the result you see on the page. Robert Morris was a similar scenario, just with more goals, which is to be expected. Coach Nick Myers spoke about new depth, etc. The interesting nugget is that Ohio State ran two different attack lines out there, subbing en masse instead of running a rotational substitution out there as other teams do. It’s an interesting maneuver, but unlikely to last into the season.
The Bad
Bobby van Buren was injured again this fall. He is one of Ohio State’s best players when healthy. Tragically, he never seems to be able to stay off the injury report. Hopefully it’s a minor glitch and things get straightened out before 2025 hits. I’ve not seen anything pop up in the rumor mill, but that means nothing. The defense, thankfully, seems to have enough talent to survive while being mostly good. But with Marcus Hudgins gone, and some serious issues at short stick, a depleted defense is not what the Buckeyes need at present.
Additionally, I noticed that there are a couple more missing names from last year’s squad. Based on my count, over half the team from 2024 won’t suit up for the Buckeyes in 2025. One of Ohio State’s former top 100 recruits is just gone. And not even to a lower level. That’s neither great news, nor sustainable long term. To be fair to the staff, the top 100 from Inside Lacrosse is basically unusable after their top 20. The National Lacrosse Federation (fancy, expensive club coalition) rankings are also useless because they only rank players who regularly play in NLF events. With this (huge) caveat, Ohio State can’t afford to routinely miss on its top 100 talent.
The Intriguing
Ohio State showed some interesting offensive play in the few clips that were posted from the scrimmages. Garrett Haas, who Kessenich mentioned, appeared with some good play that led to a goal. Freshman Liam White sparked another score off a rollback throwback to Dillon Magee. And the Buckeyes managed to score on a throwback to X where the attackman followed the dodger to score a low angle goal. Most of the action was performed by transfers or Ed Shean, which is great for 2025, but concerning for 2026. All in all, there was some offensive play that hasn’t been seen from Ohio State in a few years that gives me hope for next season. But we’re still seeing some interesting decisions on the schedule.
Despite no official posting, Kessenich let slip that Ohio State will bring Virginia to Columbus for the first time since 2013. That game was a Cavs blowout, so hopefully we will see a better showing from the Buckeyes this year. Also on the schedule are defending champions Notre Dame and the annual western war with Denver. It sounds like the Big Red of Cornell have been dropped, so maybe Myers finally learned his lesson about scheduling a bunch of top 10 teams and losing to all of them.
As skill and individual work continues for the Buckeyes prior to the start of the season, it’s proven to be a fairly quiet October on into November for the program. Part of that is recruiting essentially being wrapped up already, along with the complete lack of information that comes out of the program aside from a random interview or two. But, having scoured the results and internet, I think that we can make a few inferences.
First, it sounds like the Buckeyes are going to be better on offense. That’s probably to be expected, given how absolutely atrocious last year’s team was up and down the roster on that side of the ball. We’re talking barely above 2018 levels of offense. With that said, Jack McKenna and Alex Marinier absolutely cannot be carrying the ball. The two players are so much better in catch-and-shoot situations that they must be opposite or adjacent to the ball at all times.
Second, and playing off of point one, a ballcarrier still needs to emerge. I don’t know if a transfer midfielder can handle the job, if Garrett Haas can finally get back to his high school days, or if Liam White will be able to translate his game to the Big Ten early. But if we don’t see an effective option emerge early, then it will be another long year.
Third, Ohio State is still going to be in trouble if the faceoff group is anonymous again. The Buckeyes got manhandled at the dot over and over last year, which really sunk their chances against teams with a pulse. Tommy Burke was not even an average Big Ten player last year, and
I don’t think that anyone on the roster will be in a position to make a significant impact on the game. Jack Oldman was Ohio State’s go to FOGO down the stretch, and he never got above 50% when playing teams not named Detroit Mercy.
Unless the staff magically treats faceoffs like Notre Dame has for years, there’s going to be some serious problems getting possession all year long. And, as depleted as a lot of Big Ten teams will be this season, the talent level at Ohio State has not been the same as it was in the glory years.
Finally, I am deeply, deeply concerned about the state of the short stick defensive group. The only addition of note was a DIII All American, which is admittedly not nothing. But even if you keep Blake Eiland there (which would be an abject disaster for the offense), the group is headlined by a starting pair that includes an offensive midfielder who shouldn’t even be on defense and a DIII player who doesn’t have a single DI start.
The remainder of the rotation is either completely unknown or a known liability. That is absolutely terrifying, given the struggles of that unit over the past few years. Nothing about this year’s fallball results is promising, given their general lack of applicability to the regular season. It’s going to be a long, long season if there’s not any progress made there. Prepare yourselves.
As the calendar slowly counts down to 2025, we will get to have some real Buckeye lacrosse conversations soon. In the meantime, football is gearing up for THE Game, men’s soccer is making a deep run, basketball is trending well early on, and the women’s hockey team will faceoff fairly soon. There’s plenty to be excited about in Buckeye sports. Lacrosse will get its time soon enough. And we’ll see how things shake out for the program as it potentially heads into one of the most exciting times in program history. More on the House settlement fall out soon.
Go Bucks!
