It might be quite the task for the Tewaaraton Award committee to winnow its list of 25 semifinalists down to five next month.
There are four finalists from a year ago still in the college game, and three of them rank in the top 10 nationally in points per game (Cornell’s CJ Kirst, Virginia’s Connor Shellenberger and Notre Dame’s Pat Kavanagh). The outlier of that group, Duke’s Brennan O’Neill, was last season’s recipient and is 17th in points per game at 4.57.
There’s also the national leader in points per game (Yale’s Matt Brandau), plus the current No. 2 (Harvard’s Sam King) and No. 3 (Penn State’s TJ Malone) in that category. And it doesn’t even include Joey Spallina, the face of Syracuse’s re-emergence as a threat to play on the season’s final day.
(How loaded is the semifinalists list? Virginia attackman Payton Cormier, who leads the country in goals per game, didn’t make the cut.)
It’s also worth remembering a couple historical details. Of the Tewaaraton’s 23 all-time winners, 11 played for national champions, 17 were on teams that reached at least the NCAA semifinals and all of them played on an NCAA quarterfinalist. Winning in May, at least a little, matters.
And of the 110 Tewaaraton finalists, just eight played on teams that missed the NCAA tournament. Winning in the regular season matters, too.
With that in mind, here is a top six heading into the final five weeks of the season, listed in alphabetical order. There isn’t a clear front-runner at this point, and depending on what criteria is prioritized, they can be ordered in pretty much any way.
But chances are, this year’s winner emerges from this group.
Matt Brandau, A, Yale (41 G, 53 A in 13 games)
Every week brings another silly stat line or two for Brandau, who is averaging 7.23 points per game. As a comparison, the only two players in the last 30 years to surpass seven points a game were Penn State’s Grant Ament in 2019 and Albany’s Lyle Thompson in 2014.
Raw numbers don’t guarantee anything — Ament didn’t win despite carving up defenses on his way to a 30-goal, 96-assist season — and defense isn’t exactly a core strength for much of the Ivy League this season. But Brandau’s production as the clear central figure on Yale’s attack after season-ending injuries to Leo Johnson and Chris Lyons is impressive.
CJ Kirst, A, Cornell (41 G, 18 A in 12 games)
The Big Red star has impressed in victories over Yale (four goals and four assists) and Syracuse (five goals and one assist). And he has stood out in losses to Penn (four goals) and Notre Dame (five goals and three assists).
He’s not the only player on Cornell’s offense enjoying a stellar season; Michael Long has 26 goals and 34 assists to edge Kirst out by a point entering Saturday’s regular-season finale. Nonetheless, there aren’t many players people around the sport you would want to have the ball in the final minute of a tight game than Kirst, and he has a decent chance to become a two-time Tewaaraton finalist.