Oct. 18, 2006

BALTIMORE, MD -- Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse coach Dave Pietramala announced today that three players have been selected to serve as team captains for the upcoming 2007 season. Johns Hopkins will open the 2007 season at home on Saturday, February 24 against Albany.

Senior attackmen Jake Byrne (Potomac, MD/Landon) and Drew Dabrowski (Syracuse, NY/West Genesee) and senior long stick midfielder Brendan Skakandi (Farmingdale, NY/Farmingdale) were selected in a vote by their teammates to serve as team captains for the 2007 season. Byrne is entering his second year as a captain, while Dabrowski and Skakandi will be first-time captains.

Byrne has started all 30 games on attack in the last two years and played in all 15 on Hopkins' second midfield as a freshman. He totaled 18 goals and 10 assists last season to run his career totals to 48 goals and 30 assists for 78 points. He has 13 multi-goal games in his career and has scored some memorable goals during his career. He tallied the game-tying goal with 1.4 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter of the 2005 NCAA Semifinal victory against Virginia and added the game-winning goal in the national championship game against Duke two days later. He has registered at least one point in all nine NCAA Tournament games the Blue Jays have played in his career and he has registered at least one point in 35 of the last 39 games.

Dabrowski saw the most extensive playing time of his career last season as he played in all 14 games with 11 starts to his credit. He posted career highs in goals (9), assists (6) and points (15) last season and registered at least one point in 10 of 14 games on the year. He has played in 26 games in his career with 11 starts.

Skakandi has emerged as one of the top long-stick midfielders in the nation over the last two years. He has played in all 30 games since the start of the 2005 season and has appeared in 37 games in his career. Skakandi fueled a Hopkins defense that held nine of 14 opponents to nine goals or less and six opponents to seven goals or less last season. Johns Hopkins finished 17th in the nation in scoring defense in 2006 and Skakandi finished third on the team with 39 ground balls.

Since Pietramala took over in 2001 the Blue Jays have posted a 72-15 record, qualified for the NCAA Tournament every year, advanced to the NCAA Semifinals four times (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005), finished as national runner-up once (2003) and won the 2005 national championship.

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