NEW YORK - The Skyline Conference announced the 2020 men's lacrosse preseason poll on Thursday, February 20, and the league's eight head coaches voted Maritime College to the top spot with 45 total points and five first-place votes. Rounding out the top four teams was the United States Merchant Marine Academy, Manhattanville, and Farmingdale St., respectively.

The Privateers enter the 2020 season off of a historic 2019 campaign where they won the program's first ever Skyline Conference title. Maritime went 15-4 and completed an undefeated Skyline Conference slate after topping USMMA in the championship game 16-13. Despite losing a couple key starters from last year including Brett Trodden (Putnam Valley, N.Y./Putnam Valley) and Justin Weigold (Huntington, N.Y./Huntington), the Privateers still return a majority of last year's production as well as a strong incoming class of newcomers.

"This shows that our hard work and success last year earned the respect of our conference opponents, but this is a brand new season and everybody starts at the same spot," said head coach Justin Manjares. "We're not going to take anything for granted and we have a lot of work to do in front of us."

Maritime will open up the season this Saturday at Marywood with a 12 p.m. face-off. Following their season opener, the Privateers will return home on Wednesday, February 26 for a matchup against Drew at 7 p.m. To see the full release from the Skyline Conference, click here.