SHERMAN, Texas - Austin College men's water polo player Cade Griffith was named the MPSF East Player of the Year and head coach Mark Lawrence was tabbed as the MPSF East Coach of the Year, and the 'Roos placed four players on the All-MPSF East Team after an outstanding 2022 regular season.
Griffith, a senior from Oak Brook, Ill., led all MPSF players this season with 58 goals in 17 games, an league-leading average of 3.41 goals-per-game. He was one of two eastern division players to earn multiple player of the week awards. His first recognition came on Oct. 10 after accumulating 15 goals in four games in Southern California, which included a then-matching 2022 MPSF season-high six goals vs. D2 Biola along with a hat trick against D-I No. 17 Santa Clara. Griffith's second award also came after a SoCal road trip to close the regular season, when he totaled nine goals and seven steals at top-ranked D3 Pomona-Pitzer and La Verne. Griffith is the first player from Austin College to win a major end-of-the-year MPSF award.
Lawrence coached a 'Roo team which played an extremely competitive schedule in 2022. Austin played five NCAA Division-I teams (including nationally-ranked Harvard, UC San Diego, and Santa Clara), two NCAA Division II teams, and several highly-ranked D3 teams all on the road during its 18-game regular season. The Kangaroos managed five regular season wins and a 2-1 winning record in MPSF games to take second place in the Eastern division. Lawrence, a two-time CWPA Coach of the Year, earns his first career MPSF Coach of the Year award.
Joining Griffith as an All-MPSF first team selection is senior attacker Max Wade, a native of Flower Mound, who earns that distinction for the second time in his career. Along with Austin College's two first team All-MPSF East selections, Dylan McArthur, a junior attacker from Missouri City, and Alan Rosenberg, a junior goalkeeper from Naperville, Ill., were each named second team All-MPSF East. Wade and McArthur added scoring punch for the 'Roos throughout the season, with Wade wrapping up the regular season as the program's all-time leader in career goals scored. Rosenberg finished fifth in the MPSF in saves this season, stopping 114 shots so far during the 2022 campaign.
Austin College heads to Los Angeles this weekend, where they'll open up the MPSF Tournament against the USC Trojans on Friday.