GETTYSBURG, Pa. – The Gettysburg College men's lacrosse team will make its 15th consecutive appearance in the Centennial Conference (CC) championship tournament when it hosts Washington College on Wednesday.
 
The top-seeded and second-ranked Bullets (15-0, 8-0 CC) will take on the fourth-seeded Shoremen (6-9, 5-3 CC) in the CC semifinals at 4 p.m. at Shirk Field at Musselman Stadium. In the other semifinal on Wednesday, second-seeded and 13th-ranked Ursinus College (12-2, 7-1 CC) will host third-seeded Dickinson College (7-8, 5-3 CC) at 7 p.m.
 
The two semifinal winners will meet in the conference championship game on Saturday at the highest remaining seed at a time to be announced. The conference champion earns an automatic bid in the NCAA Division III tournament.
 
Gettysburg has won 13 Centennial Conference championships, including eight since the conference starting using a postseason playoff to determine the champion in 2001. Gettysburg is hosting a CC playoff game for the first time since 2010.
 
Gettysburg and Washington will be facing off in the conference tournament for the second year in a row after the Shoremen defeated the Bullets in the semifinals last season in Chestertown. Gettysburg holds an 8-2 lead over Washington in the CC playoffs, but all but two of those meetings have occurred in the conference championship game. The two sides have split their two semifinal meetings while Gettysburg is 7-1 versus the Shoremen in the final.
 
The two teams just met this past Saturday, with Gettysburg defeating Washington 11-9 to cap its first undefeated regular season and break the school record for its longest winning streak (15).
 
The Bullets also defeated Ursinus by a final of 9-7 back on April 11 and Dickinson by a 17-5 verdict on April 8.
 
Gettysburg been led offensively by senior Robby Maddux (Baltimore, Md./St. Paul's), who has poured in a Centennial Conference-leading 44 goals – the most by a Bullet since Joe Brody '10 scored 51 in 2008. He is also tied with sophomore Sean Fumai (Weston, Conn./Weston) for the team lead in assists (16). Four other Bullets have contributed over 20 goals in junior Jameson Smith (Glen Ridge, N.J./Glen Ridge) (29), senior Bijan Firouzan (Pittsburgh, Pa./Mount Lebanon) (27), senior Brendan Morris (Waccabuc, N.Y./John Jay) (23), and junior Paul Werner (Westfield, N.J./Seton Hall Prep) (22). In addition, senior Jimmy Morris (Waccabuc, N.Y./John Jay) has dished out 14 assists.
 
Defensively, freshman Tim Brady (Charlotte, N.C./Providence) has enjoyed an outstanding season as the goalie of record in all 15 of the Bullets' victories. He ranks second in the Centennial Conference and 11th in Division III with a 6.18 goals-against average, allowing nine goals or less in 14 of his 15 starts. Sophomore long-stick midfielder Chris Palladino (Basking Ridge, N.J./Ridge) has also played extremely well, leading the team in both ground balls (53) and caused turnovers (20). Senior short-stick middie Nick Alibrandi (Fort Salonga, N.Y./St. Anthony's) has contributed 40 ground balls while junior defenseman Bill McAvoy (Villanova, Pa./Episcopal Academy) and senior defenseman Ben Armellini (New Canaan, Conn./Kent School) have added 18 and 17 caused turnovers, respectively.
 
Freshman Connor Sweeney (Great Falls, Va./Potomac Falls) has taken the majority of Gettysburg's face-offs, winning 50.6 percent (83-164) of his attempts at the X.