Bagdon a leader for the Holy Cross defense

When he was a senior at Frontier Regional High School in 2019, Connor Bagdon thought he would soon be going on to college like most of his classmates. Little did he know that it would be the fall of 2021 before he took his first college class.

Although he had collegiate some options when he graduated, Bagdon elected to spend a postgraduate year at the Northfield Mount Hermon School where he could grow both athletically and academically. He then committed to Holy Cross expecting to begin his time on Mount St. James in 2020, before deferring admission for a year after COVID hit.

Even though his path to Holy Cross did not go exactly as he had planned, it put his in a good position to be successful on the field once he arrived.

“Between my postgrad year and COVID, it gave me two years to work in the gym and improve my strength and my speed,” Bagdon said. “Compared to a lot of freshmen, I was able to adjust to the intensity of Division I and the Patriot League pretty quickly. That extra time to develop helped me acclimatize to the speed of play and the physicality of our league.”

Bagdon was able to make an immediate impact on the field as a freshman, starting all 19 games in the fall of 2021 as the Crusaders finished in third place in the Patriot League regular season standings. He has been a mainstay in the starting lineup ever since, in addition to being a standout in the classroom. Bagdon has been named to the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll in each of the last two seasons, and also earned Academic All-District honors from the College Sports Communicators in 2022.

“Holy Cross is such a prestigious school and the academics are pretty rigorous, and so is our schedule for our season,” Bagdon said. “It definitely took a little bit of time to get used to, but this is another area where my postgraduate year helped me. Being successful in the classroom is really about staying on top of things and planning ahead.”

Back on the field, Bagdon is once again playing a key role for a Holy Cross defense which has posted three shutouts this season, along with three other games in which it has allowed only one goal.

“We have a talented, deep roster of guys, and we’ve all been competing and pushing each other to play at our highest level,” Bagdon said. “What it comes down to defensively is communicating on the field, making sure we are all on the same page and sticking to our defensive principles. If we can eliminate errors and avoid giving the ball away in bad areas, we can make it really hard for teams to break us down and score goals.”

Holy Cross will be back in action this week when it plays host to Lafayette (Oct. 1) and UMass Lowell (Oct. 3). Those two contests start a five-game stretch where the Crusaders will play at home four times. Bagdon and his teammates are looking forward to what they can accomplish during that time.

“The boys definitely love playing at home,” Bagdon said. “We have been pretty successful at home over the last few seasons, and we take pride in making it extremely difficult for other teams when them come here. Our home field advantage is very useful and we will look to take advantage of that in the weeks ahead.”

'SADER SHORTS

• The Crusaders have a 14-5-5 record at Linda Johnson Smith Stadium over the last four seasons.
• Lafayette holds a 26-8-8 lead in the all-time series with Holy Cross, including a 4-0-1 mark in the last five games.
• The Crusaders stand 16-5-2 all-time against UMass Lowell, with a 5-1-0 record in the last six meetings.

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