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The 2018 NCAA men’s lacrosse season isn’t even officially over yet, with the Final Four coming up on on Saturday, and the championship game scheduled for Memorial Day afternoon. However, according to Inside Lacrosse, Marquette has already secured two incoming transfers for the 2018-19 school year and the 2019 season.
The first one is quite the interesting situation, as Andrew Romagnoli is headed to Milwaukee after two-plus seasons of competition at Delaware. Romagnoli’s story is interesting in two ways. First, this isn’t Romagnoli’s first go-round at Marquette, as he was enrolled and part of the team in the fall of 2014 and was even on the preseason prospectus roster for the 2015 season as published in January. However, he never got into a game for the Golden Eagles that spring, and was off to Delaware for the 2016 campaign. He played in 29 games for the Blue Hens in 2016 and 2017, making 27 starts. He was a notable contributor for UD, recording 84 points (55 goals, 29 assists) in those two years. He led Delaware in goals (34), assists (19), and points (53) in 2017. 2018 was a different story, which is where we get into the second interesting turn here. Romagnoli played in five games with five goals and two assists before being dismissed from the team along with three other players for a violation of team rules. He’ll be a redshirt senior attacker for the Golden Eagles in 2019, providing experience at the D1 level to a unit that was heavily reliant on John Wagner. MU also won’t be reliant on Romagnoli to make plays, as Wagner returns for his senior year, Tanner Thomson is slated to return from injury, and Anthony Orsini will be expected to carry a load after a promising freshman campaign.
The other newest Golden Eagle is also familiar to the team, except for a slightly different reason. Johnny Hulsman is leaving Bellarmine after one season, giving him three years of eligibility left to go. Hulsman was the netminder for Bellarmine’s 7-6 double overtime victory over Marquette in March of this past season. Hulsman made 13 saves in that game, including one in the first extra session to give the Knights the victory. Hulsman started nine games for BU, racking up over 500 minutes played. He allowed 8.69 goals per 60 minutes and stopped 59% of shots on goal. That was good enough to earn him honors as the best netminder in the Southern Conference in 2018.
Hulsman will be competing for time with Chris Rolfing and Gabe Stein, along with an incoming freshman according to Inside Lacrosse, as Cole Blazer’s decorated career between the pipes has come to an end.