Loyola Blakefield lacrosse defenseman Billy Dwan to reunite with Dave Pietramala, father’s former boss, at Syracuse

Fans of college and professional lacrosse know that games usually take between two to two-and-a-half hours to complete. For father-son duo Bill and Billy Dwan, that process can go at least another hour.

That’s because Bill Dwan, the former associate head coach at Johns Hopkins, and Billy Dwan, a defenseman who recently completed his senior year at Loyola Blakefield, frequently rewind the footage to watch and study teams’ defensive alignments and strategies. They recently scrutinized a Cannons-Archers game in the Premier Lacrosse League.

“We just talk about what happened and break it down,” said Billy Dwan, 18. “Both of us like doing that, so we do it a lot. It might anger the rest of my family because they want the TV though.”

The elder Dwan, 53, said the game reviews are an extension of earlier times when he laid on the carpet in their home in Lutherville and examined film of upcoming Blue Jays opponents with his son next to him.

“When we watch a PLL game, as great as those guys are, or a college game, we’ll go over the plays that I see, how a guy misplayed this pick or how this guy was hot,” Bill Dwan said. “So I think it has helped him in that part of the game with off-the-ball stuff and IQ stuff.”

Billy Dwan has reaped the benefits of those impromptu sessions. After a 2022 season in which he was named to The Baltimore Sun’s All-Metro boys lacrosse team, he will continue his career at Syracuse.

With the Orange, the 6-foot-5, 210-pound Dwan will be reunited with longtime family friend Dave Pietramala, the former Johns Hopkins standout defenseman and coach who is the defensive coordinator on Gary Gait’s staff. Pietramala is aware of the responsibility he has in molding the son of the man who was his teammate on the Blue Jays for two seasons, was his colleague for 20 years, and was a contributing figure in the program’s NCAA championships in 2005 and 2007.

“I’ve been around since his birth,” Pietramala said of the younger Dwan. “I’ve watched him grow from little Billy to big Billy, and I’ve watched him grow from a young kid that was shy and rather to himself to someone who has a quiet strength about him and is a very confident and intelligent and well-spoken young man. So for me to be able to continue to see Bill Dwan and to have the chance to coach Billy, it’s exciting to be able to work with such an outstanding young man.”

Billy Dwan may have been destined to play lacrosse. In addition to his father wrapping up his career in 1991 as a three-time All-American defenseman at Johns Hopkins, his paternal uncle Matt Dwan was a three-time All-American defenseman at Loyola Maryland, his aunt, the former Michelle Meyer, was a three-time All-American and the 1997 National Midfielder of the Year for the Greyhounds, and his maternal uncle Rob Doerr was a two-time All-American defenseman with the Blue Jays. His mother, the former Pam Doerr, played soccer at George Washington.

Billy Dwan began playing lacrosse at the age of 3, spending time at evening camps at Johns Hopkins’ Homewood Field and using a cut-down lacrosse stick he still has. Dwan said he thought he would join the Blue Jays until the university chose not to renew the contracts of Pietramala, Bill Dwan and offensive coordinator Bobby Benson shortly after the coronavirus pandemic canceled the 2020 season.

“For me, as a kid, a lot of my lacrosse memories take place at Hopkins,” the younger Dwan said. “I was watching games in the building they have or I was doing the evening camps at night. So I really couldn’t see a world where I didn’t go to Hopkins with my dad and Coach Petro and Coach Bobby. Now I’m happy with me going to Syracuse.”

Dwan committed to the Orange over North Carolina and Loyola, which meant he had to gently let down Matt Dwan, who is the defensive coordinator on coach Charley Toomey’s staff. “That was probably the hardest phone call, to tell my uncle that I wasn’t going to Loyola,” he admitted.

After the 2021 season, Syracuse coach John Desko announced his retirement, which meant Billy Dwan would join a program under new leadership. Lacrosse great Gary Gait moved from the women’s team to the men’s side, and he then hired Pietramala as his defensive coordinator.

Billy Dwan is enthusiastic about learning from the man he affectionately calls “Coach Petro.”

“As a kid, seeing him coach with my dad and everything and just seeing how he ran his program at Hopkins and seeing how he runs his defense at Syracuse, I’m super excited to go play for him,” he said. “It’s probably the best hire for me.”

Bill Dwan, who talks to Pietramala every week and recently met him for dinner, called the development “the best possible result.”

“It’s funny how that all worked out,” he said. “You can call it destiny or luck or whatever you want to call it. Billy’s obviously very comfortable with Dave and has known Dave his whole life.”

In his senior year, Dwan scooped up 52 ground balls and scored nine goals for the No. 11 Dons (6-9). Coach Gene Ubriaco said Dwan limited every attackman he shadowed but was even more impressive as a role model for his teammates.

“I don’t know that I’ve coached anyone better,” he said. “He has a quiet kind of leadership, which is great. Everybody respects and likes Billy. I can’t stress how humble he is for a player as talented as he is. If you know his parents, then you know why he is the way he is.”

Dwan will join a Syracuse defense that graduated a pair of starters in Brett Kennedy and Grant Murphy and surrendered 14.7 goals per game this past spring, ranking 66th of 72 NCAA Division I teams. While projecting Dwan as a defenseman rather than a long-stick midfielder, Pietramala said he anticipates Dwan catching up to speed quickly.

“Billy Dwan has a keen understanding of how I like to play defense,” he said. “He’s been watching it his whole life. He’s been listening to his dad talk about it his whole life. So I’m very excited that we’ve got a kid who is 6-foot-5, is long, is rangy. I think he’s deceptively athletic. He’s an extraordinarily bright defender who plays his angles very well and gives you a guy big enough to play a bigger guy and smart enough to cover a smaller guy that may be quicker than he is.”

Ubriaco predicted that Dwan could be a four-year starter for the Orange. Dwan declined to speculate and instead insisted that he is ready to help in any capacity.

“I just want to be a good teammate and everything before all that [being a four-year starter],” he said. “Being a good teammate, being a good friend. Wherever they put me, if that’s starting or putting me on the bench or getting the water, I don’t really care. I’ll play wherever they put me.”