Entering his fourth season as the head coach of the Michigan men’s lacrosse team, Kevin Conry is gradu- ally building off the foundation laid by his predecessor, John Paul. After reeling in the No. 4 and No. 3 recruiting classes in 2020 and 2021, respectively, Conry is hungry to shake up the Big Ten with a Wolverine squad that is quietly yet quickly ascending. Finding a replacement for Paul, the human embodiment of Michigan lacrosse, was no simple task for ath- letic director Warde Manuel. Nevertheless, on June 21, 2017, just six weeks after he declared Paul wouldn’t be returning, Manuel announced that Maryland assistant head coach and defensive coordinator Kevin Conry would serve as the Wol- verines’ next head coach. Coming from a perennially stout Terrapins’ organization that defeat- ed Ohio State in the NCAA cham- pionship game that season and had won the Big Ten the past three sea- sons, Conry brought a track record of winning at the Division I level that appealed to an up-and-coming pro- gram like Michigan. And as a Long Island native who played college lacrosse at Johns Hopkins, Conry had deep East Coast roots that would help the Wolverines recruit, bolster their coaching staff and enhance their understanding of the game. In tandem with the completion of U-M Lacrosse Stadium — a brand- new, lavish complex featuring a 2,000- seat stadium, an indoor turf room and direct passage into a 20,000-square- foot strength and conditioning center — Conry’s arrival set Michigan up for a new era. He was someone who Manu- el thought could turn the corner. “(He was) different enough from me in so many ways that I think (was) a good thing,” Paul said. “It (could) kinda jumpstart the program in a different direction, which I think any time you have a coaching change, that’s what you need. Really a kick in the ass from a different direction.” But Conry also respected the immense utility of Paul’s legacy and culture that he had spent so many years developing. During the transi- tion period, the pair had an amica- ble relationship. While Paul taught Conry how to navigate the com- plexities of the University and form relationships with a proper support- ing cast of Wolverine faculty, Conry worked to build on many of the core elements Paul had already woven into the team’s fabric. “It was certainly encouraging, because you know when someone invests their heart and soul and so much time into something, you know it’s gonna be trending positively,” Conry said. “It was a really solid foun- dation that we could springboard (from) and really continue to develop the championship culture that we were putting together. … As we tran- sitioned in, we continued that growth process, but we were confident that we had a really strong baseline to build off of.” Under Conry, the synergy of utiliz- ing new and old team values seeming- ly paid dividends. In 2018, having retained many of their key roster pieces from the year prior, the Wolverines picked up where they left off, once again finishing 8-6. Despite stumbles against ranked opponents early on the season, drop- ping matchups to the No. 18 Penn and No. 11 Yale, Michigan later picked up signature wins over the No. 4 Notre Dame on the road and the No. 14 Penn State in an overtime thriller. In both contests, the Wolverines set major milestones, earning their first wins over a top-five program and a ranked Big Ten program, respectively. As Conry made his transition in his first year with Michigan, he benefited tremendously from the support, pro- duction and leadership of its veteran players. According to Conry, seniors like midfielders PJ Bogle and Parker McKee fully embraced the uncer- tainty that a coaching change brought and served as blank pages for Conry to work with. “The best teams coach themselves,” Conry said. “If you wanna have a suc- cessful championship team, you have seniors that buy in, know what they’re doing and can keep the rest of the team not just in line, but also encourage them to do the right things and to have that positive leadership.” On the playing field, Brent Nose- worthy had a record-setting junior season. Notching 48 points on a whopping 41 goals, he surpassed King’s short-lived record for points in a season and led the Big Ten with 2.93 goals per game. By Noseworthy’s side, Curran recorded 31 points and helped mentor then-freshman attackmen Kevin Mack and Alex Buckanavage. “Not only (were) they invested enough to understand what they (needed) to do, but they (could) teach somebody else and help them grow as well,” Conry said. “(Noseworthy was) gonna go out and shoot an extra bucket of balls. He (was) gonna take somebody with him. And that’s real- ly where good teams become great teams and cusp teams become cham- pionship teams.” *** Although 2018 set the stage for a positive future, the Wolverines took a step back in 2019. Plagued by injuries in several piv- otal areas, including on the defensive front and at the faceoff X, Michigan struggled to slow down its opponents and win important possessions all season long, giving up 13.46 goals per game and losing 67.6 of its faceoffs. On the offensive end, the Wolverines missed the goal-scoring capabili- ties of Noseworthy, who missed five games due to injury. Michigan limped into its season finale against No. 10 Ohio State with a meager 3-9 record. Heading into the contest, the Wol- verines were evidently underdogs. But rallying behind a now-healthy Noseworthy and other seniors like Curran and Second Team All-Big Ten defenseman Nick DeCaprio, Michigan was motivated to end the otherwise disappointing season on a high note by defeating its rival for the first time. “I was really proud of the fight in those guys,” Conry said. “When we had the injuries, we had to adapt and change. … Walk out there and say, ‘Hey, we still have a game to play. We gotta be successful.’ ” Bolstered by four assists in the first half by Buckanavage, a single-game team record, the Wolverines sur- prisingly skirted out to an 8-4 lead at halftime. Just over halfway through the third quarter, Noseworthy netted the 100th goal of his career — the first Michigan player to do so — to extend the Wolverines’ lead. Although the Buckeyes closed the deficit to two with 10 minutes remaining, a subse- quent pair of goals from Noseworthy secured the monumental win for Michigan, 13-10. In a difficult season that drastical- ly differed from the one preceding it, 2019 taught Conry and his players a lot about adversity. “Handling success is something that’s really important,” Conry said. “You walk through the door, your last game’s a win, and you say, ‘Okay, yeah, have we made it?’ I think that knowledge of, ‘Why did we become successful? What got us there?’ — that was the biggest lesson of 2019. No matter what happens, we gotta get up in the morning and gotta look at our- selves in the mirror and say, ‘Are we prepared to be successful today? Are we ready to put the work in to do so?’ We learned and grew throughout the year in order to do that.” Heading into 2020 with healthy legs and new faces, the Wolverines looked to take this newfound wis- dom, redeem themselves and move forward as a program. They wouldn’t have the opportunity to fully do that though. On Mar. 11, Michigan nar- rowly defeated Marquette, 13-12, to move to 4-3 in a befuddling season that had featured an impressive dis- play of grit against the No. 5 Bulldogs, but also a stunning loss to freshly-pro- moted Merrimack. Little did the Wolverines know at the time, though, that they had played the last Michigan sporting event to occur for the next seven months. Just a day later, the NCAA canceled the remainder of all winter and spring sports seasons due to the COVID- 19 pandemic, which was worsening by the day. Just like that, the world of sports turned upside down as the country went into lockdown. On May 18, Furman University announced its intention to cut its varsity men’s lacrosse and baseball programs due to the financial impact of COVID- 19. Before long, schools across the coun- try revealed similar plans to cut some of their non-revenue sports as well, most frequently smaller programs like gym- nastics, tennis and swimming. For a moment in time, as a young and developing program, everything the Wolverines had ever been work- ing toward seemed to hang in limbo. The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Sports Wednesday, February 17, 2021 — 15 DREW COX Daily Sports Editor Michigan lacrosse: A New Era JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily Before the season was canceled in March, Midfielder Josh Zawada led the Wolverines 32 points last season during his freshman campaign. Read more at MichiganDaily.com