DUMLAX Blog| Tewaaraton Release |Marquette Preview

NEW YORK -- [5/5] University of Denver men's lacrosse freshman FOGO Trevor Baptiste (Denville, N.J.), senior attackman Wesley Berg (Coquitlam, B.C.) and sophomore attackman Connor Cannizzaro (Cazenovia, N.Y.) made the next cut as the 50-player Tewaaraton Watch List was cut to 25 nominees on Thursday.

Baptiste leads the country in faceoff winning percentage at a 0.724 (202-279) clip through 12 games this season. The DU rookie went 25-of-26, including winning 25-straight in Denver's 19-7 win over Georgetown on March 28. Last week, Baptiste went 22-of-24 in the Pioneers' 13-9 victory over Providence. Baptiste also went 25-of-34 and picked up 14 ground balls in his first career game, a 17-13 win over Duke on February 14. The Denville, N.J. native is in fourth (202) on DU's single-season faceoff wins list, 40 wins behind record-setter Geoff Snider (242 in 2006). Baptiste is the only men's nominee that is a freshman.

Cannizzaro leads the fifth-ranked Pioneers with 60 points on 36 goals and 24 assists through Denver's first 12 games in 2015. The Maryland transfer became the first player in Denver history to have eight points in a game twice in a season (did it in his first two games). Cannizzaro is seventh on DU's single-season points list (60), 18 behind Eric Law's 2013 output (78).

Berg has 45 points on 31 goals and 14 assists in 2015, including 10 first-half points against Villanova on April 3, earning him USILA National Player of the Week honors. The Pioneer senior set the DU career points and goals records on April 11 against St. John's, and now sits on 222 career points and 161 career goals. Berg's 161 career goals is the most of any active player in the NCAA, three ahead of Albany's Lyle Thompson.

Five men's and five women's finalists will be announced on May 7 and invited to the ceremony. The Tewaaraton Award Ceremony will be held in Washington, D.C., on May 28, 2015, at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian.

DU travels to Marquette on Saturday as it looks for its second-consecutive outright BIG EAST title. The April 25 faceoff is set for 1 p.m. CT/12 p.m. MT on CBS Sports Network.

Tickets are on sale now for the 2015 NCAA Quarterfinals at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. Fans can purchase tickets for the quarterfinal games at the link here .

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