The Riverhawks men’s lacrosse team finished the 2023 season winless for the first time since 2003.

In the 2003 campaign—the Pioneers—now the Riverhawks–finished 0-4.

One reason the team struggled this season, said goalie Jonathan Inkrote, is a lot of players quit during the season.

“They decided to take an extra class or they just didn’t want to come out,”  Inkrote, a second-year business student, said. “They didn’t have the heart that all of us that are out here now have.”

Last year the Riverhawks carried 29 players on the roster. At the end of the spring 2023 season, just 19 remained on the team.

“When you’re playing teams like Essex, who has 40 guys, Harford who has 50, possibly even 60 guys, it’s tough to compete when we have [not as much],” Attacker Payton Williams, a second-year communications student, said.

Williams said some teammates struggled academically this season.

“I think that a big thing [was] academics made a lot of kids fail off,” Williams said. “I think it’s just important after a season like this to look back [and realize that] for student athletes, ‘student’ comes first.’”

Despite the winless season, Williams, who scored nine goals, noted the coaches understand the challenges the team faced this season.

“They were thrown into a terrible situation,” Williams said. “The head coach leaving in the middle of the year and as many kids failing off as they did … [made it really] hard to piece together more than [19] people on our team every game.”

Head coach Jeremy Ross replaced Joe Stanilaus, who went 0-9 in his first season at the University of the District of Columbia. 

Ross said the season was “not up to what we wanted. We’re a little disappointed.”

Inkrote said the squad faced injuries throughout the season.

“Some of the players, they get hurt one week and they’re back next week,” Inkrote said. “And then we had one player who injured his leg and he’s been gone for a little bit so that definitely hurt a lot.”

Williams noted this season was a wakeup call for some players. 

“A lot of kids had to work really hard and some got burned out,” Williams said. “They never experienced this competitive level of lacrosse before.” 

Ross said he believes the returning players next season will step up as leaders. 

They “are going to be like ‘we know we did wrong last year,”’ Ross said. “We know the approach that we need to take.” 

First-year attacker John McElhenny led the team with 11 goals and seven assists. 

Reporter Aidan Gunn contributed to this article.

This article has been updated.