Yale's Ben Reeves Adds To His National Championship And Wins The 2018 Tewaaraton Award
It was easily the largest and most highly anticipated event in sports tonight. The 2018 Tewaaraton Awards to honor the best player in both men’s and women’s college lacrosse. In case you are somehow unaware but still reading this blog anyway, the Tewaaraton is college lacrosse’s version of the Heisman. Only better because because the award typically goes to a senior who ends up graduating from their respective institution of higher education, unlike many Heisman winners who leave school early to turn pro. The Tewaaraton rewards STUDENT-Athletes with a heavy emphasis on “student” coming first. The Heisman? Not so much. But that’s not what we’re here for tonight. This night is not about arguing about the Tewaaraton being a highly superior award to the Heisman. That is a discussion for a later date. Tonight is all about celebrating the career and the achievements of National Champion, Molecular & Cellular Developmental Biology Major, and now Tewaaraton Award winner Ben Reeves.
I think we all knew that the Tewaaraton this year was going to come down to whoever came out on top of that National Championship game on Monday. It was either going to be Ben Reeves or Justin Guterding leading their team to a national title and the winner of that game would be leaving Gillette with a ring on their finger and a Tewaaraton for their shelf. After Yale’s 13-11 win, it was pretty much written in stone that Reeves would win the Tewaaraton tonight. Obviously that doesn’t take anything away from the other 4 finalists.
- Trevor Baptiste became the all-time leader in faceoff wins in NCAA lacrosse history.
- Justin Guterding was the only other player besides Reeves this year with 100+ points, he became the all-time leader in goals in NCAA lacrosse history. And he led the Duke Blue Devils to their first Final Four appearance in his career.
- Connor Kelly led the Maryland Terrapins back to their 5th straight Final Four performance, put up ridiculous numbers this year while becoming a more rounded player after having to fill the void left behind by Matt Rambo and Colin Heacock.
- Pat Spencer continues to be the LeBron of lacrosse where he is just bigger, stronger, faster, more intelligent and talented than almost everybody he goes up against. And he’ll have one more year to win the award considering he’s only a junior.
So you could easily make an argument for all 5 finalists this year. But the one thing that really put Ben Reeves over the top? The hardware. Winning a National Championship is really the only thing that any of these guys could do to really separate them from the rest of the pack. And Ben Reeves was the one to do that in 2018. And now the kid has pretty much everything you could ask for. He’s smart as fuck. He’s a handsome son of a bitch. He won a National Championship. He won the Tewaaraton Award as the best player in college lacrosse. He’ll probably end up with a sick ass job and he’ll get to play in the MLL during his summers. Christ. Save some for the rest of us, bud.
And as for the ladies’ award, this year’s went to Boston College’s Sam Apuzzo. Who just so happened to do this in the NCAA Semifinals.
Good god.