Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 8/9/16
From Press Release
Major League Lacrosse has named Greg Gurenlian (Springfield-Delco, Penn State), faceoff specialist of the New York Lizards, the winner of the 2016 FOAthlete of the Year Award, presented by The Faceoff Academy. The award honors the faceoff specialist who has taken the majority of his team’s draws and has the best regular season faceoff win percentage.
Gurenlian, who won this award in 2015, finished the regular season with 263 faceoff wins out of a possible 457 attempts for a 57.5% win percentage. Gurenlian played in thirteen of the fourteen games for the New York Lizards this season, picking up 142 groundballs along the way. It was an extremely close race to be named the FOAthlete of the Year as Joe Nardella of the Boston Cannons ended the regular season with a win ratio of 181-316 faceoffs or 57.3%. The third ranked faceoff specialist, Drew Simoneau of the Rochester Rattlers, finished with a win ratio of 182-338 or 53.8%.
The award’s sponsor, The Faceoff Academy, was developed by Greg Gurenlian, Chris Mattes, and Jerry Ragonese, with a mission dedicated to developing the lacrosse skills of every athlete through the highest quality of instruction.
It may seem interesting that Gurenlian, a Co-Founder and Coach of the sponsoring brand, is the award’s recipient, but given the award being based on the statistical best faceoff specialist in Major League Lacrosse, it can only confirm that Gurenlian is living up to his mission of providing the best faceoff training by the best in the game. The FaceOff Academy, whose goal of providing knowledge and skills at the “X” to aspiring athletes, proudly claim the best in the business on and off the field as well.