Men’s lacrosse announces inaugural recruiting class

Boston University men’s lacrosse coach Ryan Polley announced the team’s inaugural recruiting class Monday. Thirty-one true freshmen and three transfers will don the scarlet and white as the team commences varsity play in 2013-14.

Polley said the main factors in selecting these recruits were academic success and a high talent level.

“Number one is obviously they have to be a strong student,” Polley said. “We’re trying to recruit guys that are typical BU students and are going to fit very well in the campus and meet all … the credentials of the university. And then secondly, we wanted to find the best lacrosse players that we could and kind of build this roster and also guys that had great work ethic and were leaders and a lot of intangibles for their high school teams.”

The Class of 2017 boasts seven All-America selections and 10 players who won state titles during their senior year. The new Terriers come from 12 different states and one Canadian province.

There were four primary factors that influenced such high-profile lacrosse players to commit to BU, according to Polley: academic reputation, quality facilities, proximity to the city and the opportunity to start something new.

“It was kind of a combination of all those four things coming together and it gives us a great opportunity to recruit a great class and a historic class and continue to hopefully build on that and … hopefully be successful in a short period of time,” Polley said.

The three transfers are redshirt freshman midfielder Ryan Tinklepaugh of Hobart College, redshirt freshman attack Sam Tenney of High Point University and sophomore midfielder Elliott Burr from Syracuse University. Burr won two faceoffs and appeared in two games for the national runner-up Orange.

“I think all of our transfers are going to bring a level of maturity,” Polley said. “Elliott played for the No. 2 team in the country last year, which is outstanding, and he was a contributor on that team, he took a draw in the national final. He has great experience and practicing against some of the best guys in the world and in the country only made him a better player.

“But all of our transfers are coming from high-quality programs with great coaches. Just the level of competition, the speed of the practices, I think they all can help me set the tone and set the pace of practice so that we don’t have 30 guys that are so new to a fast-paced practice … they’re all going to add some maturity and a level of speed. They’ve been through it before.”

Polley takes the helm for the Terriers with 11 years of coaching experience, including serving as defensive coordinator for Yale University in its Ivy League Championship run in 2012. He said he was not concerned about any challenges stemming from the team’s youth.

“I think right now we’re just kind of worried about setting a great foundation for this program,” Polley said. “We’re not too worried about … challenges that are ahead of us. We’re more worried about our own team and doing everything the right way and getting better every single day. And the outside world … what’s going on out there is certainly going to dictate a little bit what happens but for the most part we’re going to control what we can control and just set a great work ethic and great culture.

“I know it’s going to be very tough, but we’re hoping to just get better every day and be successful as quickly as we can.”