Murphy hired to take over MOC men's lacrosse program

By MOC Sports Information
Published in Sports on September 3, 2012 1:48 PM

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MOUNT OLIVE -- Athletics director Jeff Eisen has announced that Mike Murphy has been named head men's lacrosse coach at Mount Olive College.

The Trojans are in their first year of men's and women's lacrosse.

Murphy comes to Mount Olive from Catawba College, where he has spent the past three years as assistant men's lacrosse coach. Murphy helped Catawba earn its first-ever national ranking during the 2011 season and the Indians were ranked as high as No. 8 in 2012.

Catawba's 14-3 record this past spring marked the most wins in school history, surpassing the team's previous record 12-win total in 2011. The Indians won two Deep South Conference championships, and reached the championship game all three years Murphy was at Catawba.

Murphy earned his undergraduate degree in communications arts (concentration in sociology) from Catawba College. He was an All-Deep South Conference first-team selection and also earned Deep South Conference All-Academic honors. He is currently working on his master's degree in education at Charlotte.

Murphy succeeds Mike Lawson, who was hired last November, but had to step down in August due to family circumstances. Assistant coach Mike Foderaro was serving as interim head coach.

"We are very pleased to have Mike Murphy join us as our head men's lacrosse coach," said Eisen. "He has an outstanding lacrosse background, including excellent college coaching experience, which will help our program get off to a strong start in its first year and then build on that to become a consistently competitive program."

Mount Olive begins its 2013 season Feb. 16 as the Trojans play host to Young Harris at Amon Field.