The Tallest (And Shortest) Players in D1 Men’s Lacrosse

Lacrosse fans have pontificated for ages about the importance of size. You have heard the age old saying about the size of the dog and the size of the heart, I wanted to figure out just how big the average player really is.

I recently compiled a list of the full rosters of every D1 lacrosse team. One of the great outcomes from this was a list of the height and weight of more than 3,000 D1 men’s lacrosse players. 

(Another great outcome is my series called Canadians in the NCAA, check that out here!).

Technically, this list is not comprehensive, as some programs don’t publicly list these measurements. If this is the case, there isn’t much I can do. Shame on you and your SID department. Just kidding, this isn’t that serious… but I do apologize if someone from the unlisted schools gets left off the list. 

Let’s start with the big stuff. The vast majority of D1 players are between 5’10 and 6’2, with the largest concentration of a single height being 6’0. Just under 700 players in the data are listed at exactly six feet tall.

The tallest listed player in the country is Army’s Patrick Ferguson, but I believe this to be a typo by the Army website. Ferguson is listed at 6’10, but on doing some more research Patrick was listed at 6’1 in high school and in the film from Army’s game, seems much more likely to be 6’1 than 6’10. 

And I know what you military history buffs are thinking, is this Patrick Ferguson, the British Military Officer who participated in the revolutionary war and invented the Ferguson Rifle? No, but you never know where researching for an article might take you!

With that in mind, I believe the tallest player in the country is actually Duke’s Zach Jepson. He is a product of Bend Oregon via Avon Old Farms, standing at an impressive 6’8. How’s the weather up there, Zach?

Then there are a group of kings standing at 6’7, including another Army Black Knight and two St. Josephs Mountain Hawks. 

Army’s Mark Schroeder stands 6’7 and weighs 235 pounds, a man amongst… men. The same is true for 240 pound Cole Braun of Bryant. 

The best player of the group may be Cornell LSM Walker Wallace, who came to Ithaca as a goaltender before picking up the long stick. Now starting for the Big Red, Wallace scored once already this year and has 4 career goals with the long stick. 

Another candidate there is St. Josephs defender Liam Quinn, who was second team all A-10 last year as part of a nasty intimidating Hawks defence. This year he was joined by Liam Quinn, a fellow tree. 

Iona’s Charlie Scherer and Princeton’s Brody Upton round out the list of the tallest players. 

On the other end of the spectrum, four players are tied at 5’5 for the shortest player in the nation, and three of them take faceoffs. 

Bryant’s Jordan Fernando is out to a nice start to his college career, winning 5 of 11 faceoffs this year for the Bulldogs. Detroit Mercy faceoff man Billy Hart has taken more than 450 draws in his career, and recently made his first career start at Bellarmine. Manhattan FOGO Finian Tran is just starting his college career. 

Mercyhurst’s Ryan Len is the only non-FOGO of the bunch, and is awaiting his Division 1 debut after making ten appearances for the Lakers last year!

This all got me thinking about who was the tallest team in D1 men’s lacrosse. Depending how you feel about size bias in the sport, the top ten list of tallest teams may or may not surprise you. 

Based on my data, the Princeton Tigers are the tallest group, standing at 185.5 cm, or just over 6’1 on average. Tied behind them are the Maryland Terrapins and Notre Dame Fighting Irish, at 185.1 CM, which is 6 feet and 0.85 inches. 

Then filling out the rest of the top ten is a smattering of historically elite programs. While this makes sense, it’s worth noting programs like Vermont, Dartmouth and St. Joseph’s, which have clearly made the decision to target height in recruiting. 

On the flip side, UMASS Lowell has the shortest average height in D1 men’s lacrosse, at 179.7 cm, which is about 5’10.5.

If you are looking for the full data set, check it out below!

Do these results surprise you? Let us know in the comments below!