Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime: Jacksonville Fired Up for First NCAA Tournament

After years of close calls in conference tournaments, Jacksonville didn’t leave much to chance in the Atlantic Sun tournament.

And on Sunday, coach John Galloway didn’t have to say a word as the Dolphins scored the first nine goals in a 16-7 rout of Air Force to claim the program’s first NCAA tournament berth.

“I did not do one huddle,” Galloway said Monday evening. “I did not talk in one huddle. It was our seniors every single time. I always dreamt of being player-led that way, but yesterday I watched it unfold in real time.”

Jacksonville (10-5) will make its postseason debut Wednesday in an opening round game at NEC champion Robert Morris (14-3). The winner plays at second-seeded Notre Dame on Sunday.

It could make for a long, extended road trip for the Dolphins, but it’s also been a path full of twists just to get here. Jacksonville debuted in 2010 as Division I’s southern-most outpost. They were one of the first of a bumper crop of lacrosse startups that helped the sport grow from 56 teams in 2007 to 77 today.

A lot of newcomers from the early 2010s — including teams Jacksonville has shared a league with, like High Point and Richmond — got to the tournament even before Galloway was hired as the Dolphins’ third coach a decade ago next month.

Jacksonville had some close calls of its own. There were one-goal losses in the 2018 and 2022 Southern Conference title games. Both the 2022 and 2023 teams defeated Duke in non-conference play, drawing national attention in the process.

Sunday’s victory was the Dolphins’ 58th in the last five seasons, so the breakthrough it represents is hardly out of nowhere. But it is a singular moment that was pitched to recruits throughout Galloway’s tenure, and particularly to this year’s close-knit senior class.

“I could build and I could watch this program built to where it is today, and I’m super-grateful for the opportunity,” senior Jack Taylor said. “Unlike some other programs where you have a huge alumni base and a lot of accolades and championships, I think coming here it’s a tighter, smaller alumni base. It’s pretty cool they’re on our sideline giving back and just watching the process be built through them.”

Among the on-field anchors is fifth-year senior goalie Ryan Della Rocco, whose .593 save percentage ranks third nationally. He holds a 7.25 goals-against average; excluding the truncated 2020 season, it would be the best for any qualifying Division I goalie since 2017. Aaron Toguri (28 caused turnovers) has been a mainstay on defense for four years.

The rope unit of long pole Lucas Fraser and short sticks Breyden Harrison and Charlie DiGennaro has provided a bedrock in the middle of the field. And junior Drew Rippeon is eighth in the country with a .624 faceoff percentage.

Taylor is probably the most nationally recognizable player of the bunch after getting selected in the fourth round of last month’s Premier Lacrosse League College Draft by the Denver Outlaws. He was a major part of the Dolphins’ offense as a freshman in 2023, and despite spending much of his career at midfield, he’s No. 3 on the program’s career points list with 197 behind former teammates Jackson Intrieri (229) and Jacob Greiner (225).

That includes six goals and nine assists in routs of Mercer and Air Force in the conference tournament to give him 37 goals and 43 assists this season.

“We preach humility and gratitude,” Galloway said. “Those are the two words you have to have in our program, and he embodies those two things. We switched him to attack about halfway through last year and continued to carry that weight and has done so with such humility and grace you feel like you’re just rooting for him as a coach because you want everybody to be like Jack Taylor.”

Impressive as Jacksonville’s run was — it scored the first six goals in the 18-3 drubbing of Mercer before scoring nine times in less than 10 minutes in the first quarter against Air Force — it came after several tight losses earlier in the season. The Dolphins opened with back-to-back 11-10 setbacks to Rutgers and North Carolina, and later fell in overtime to Navy.

But a crucial moment came on April 11, when Jacksonville lost by a goal on its Senior Day to Utah.

“It was a heartbreaker, but after that in the locker room, Bryce Wojnovich, a fifth-year senior, he brought in the whole team in the locker room and we locked arms,” Taylor said. “That was the turning point, I think. It was a real low, but seeing that turning point now, it’s something I’m grateful for, and grateful for Bryce for doing that.”

Galloway instantly noticed a difference. The Dolphins scored a program-record 27 goals the next week at Bellarmine, sparking a four-game winning streak. Jacksonville never trailed in any of them.

“There was so much belief in what we were capable of after that weekend, and the seniors took over the locker room and really poured into each other after that game that afternoon,” Galloway said. “You just felt like they weren’t going to be told, ‘No.’ That’s kind of how they came back to work that next week. In years past, we lost that game and there was a sense of uncertainty of whether or not we could do it and the senior class shifted that mindset.”

It ultimately ended a wait that Galloway acknowledged had kept him up a lot of nights. When he took over at Jacksonville, he was barely five years removed from a heralded career at Syracuse that included a pair of NCAA tournament titles and two national goalie of the year nods.

Now, Jacksonville is entrenched in the life of his family, and he admitted some relief at being able to seeing the Dolphins, past and present, savor a program first.

“He’s a coach, but he’s also a friend,” Taylor said. “He’s going to talk shop with you off the field. Him building that trust and relationship with the guys off the field first allows him to be a coach on the field and push us to where we want to be. He believes in us, and we believe in him. It’s been pretty cool watching him celebrate, too, because it’s been a long 10 years.”

Jacksonville is now facing a short three days, in the hopes of buying four more as a team. The Dolphins had a Tuesday morning flight, less than 48 hours after their triumph over Air Force, and must contend with a Robert Morris team that won its 13th in a row with a last-second defeat of Long Island on Saturday.

Now that the Dolphins are finally in the postseason, they don’t intend to let the opportunity to go to waste.

“It’s part of our identity,” Galloway said. “We began the beginning of the year with a mantra of, ‘Anyone, anywhere, anytime.’ We felt too often, we talked about the logo of the other team and the captains came to me with that. Now it’s on a bracelet that we wear. It’s, ‘Anyone, anywhere, anytime.’ I told the guys today we’re one day behind in rest. Good. We’re going to travel to Pittsburgh. Good. These are just part of who we’ve become, and it should strengthen our resolve, not weaken us.”