Andy DeMichiei (right) eludes Brian Porter (left) during a Marquette University Lacrosse team practice. Credit: Rick Wood

Joe Amplo didn't have the luxury of being choosy when he started recruiting players for Marquette University's brand-new men's lacrosse program in 2011.

"They had to have a pulse," he said, "and know how to hold a lacrosse stick."

He was exaggerating, but not by much. The top high school players on the East Coast weren't going to consider a start-from-scratch program in the Midwest — and especially one that wouldn't even play games in its first season. Amplo would have better luck selling sand in the desert.

So he looked for players with chips on their shoulders, kids from blue-collar backgrounds who'd been told they weren't good enough but would outwork more talented players.

He built a program around them, built a family around them, nurtured them, challenged them, loved them every step of the way.

And something special happened, something that would have been almost unimaginable when those kids were getting to know each other in the spring of 2012 — strangers in a strange land, led by a coach who believed in his ragtag collection of undersized, underappreciated, under-the-radar players and got them to believe in themselves.

Last weekend, Marquette, in only its fourth season of intercollegiate play, knocked off Denver, the nation's top-ranked team and defending NCAA champion, to win the Big East tournament.

The Golden Eagles ended the Pioneers' 22-game home winning streak in stunning fashion, storming back from a 7-3 halftime deficit to win, 10-9.

"I told them at halftime, 'Fellas, we're collecting your jerseys in 30 minutes and all the memories you've shared are going to be over,'" Amplo said. "'The plane leaves tomorrow morning at 6 o'clock and if you want to meet me at the airport and not come out for the second half, you're more than welcome to. But if you want to come out and fight for your teammates and everything you guys have built, I'll see you on the field in a few minutes.'"

Marquette scored six goals in the third quarter.

"Yeah, the speech was fantastic," said defender B.J. Grill, who has been in the program since Day 1. "But it was all the teaching Coach Amplo did prior to that moment. He has a knack for challenging us when our backs are up against the wall. It's our culture to respond when our backs are against the wall. This was just an echoing of what he's taught us."

Said Amplo, "We have that toughness. We have that close-knit group that's formed with love. These guys don't want to lose. And that's the most humbling thing as a coach to have."

The 11th-ranked Golden Eagles (11-4) thus secured the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship as the sixth seed and will play host to unseeded North Carolina (8-6) in a first-round game at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Valley Fields.

Win or lose, Marquette's astonishing rise in lacrosse is one of the best stories going in college sports.

"What Joe Amplo has done with his team in four years, honestly, it's miraculous," Denver coach Bill Tierney said.

Five players who arrived on campus in the fall of 2011, knowing next to nothing about Marquette or what they were getting into, are still playing: Grill and Liam Byrnes, the Big East defensive player of the year, are graduate students; Kyle Whitlow, Tyler Gilligan and Dan Mojica will graduate this month. Because Marquette didn't play games in 2012, none of them had to redshirt.

"We were all redshirts," Grill said of that first season.

Grill is Exhibit A of the type of player Amplo recruited early on. He was an outstanding high school athlete in Bridgewater, N.J., but because he is 5 foot 5 he didn't get so much as a letter from the nation's top Division 1 programs.

"Other schools didn't see what we saw in him," Amplo said. "He's got great feet. He's got the quickest feet I think I've ever coached, and I've coached several guys who have gone on to play professionally. If that kid was six inches taller he'd be a first-team All-American and he'd be on the best team in the country."

Grill never met Amplo before committing to Marquette. They talked just once on the phone. He'd never even heard of the university, but something in Amplo's recruiting pitch struck a chord.

"I came down the stairs and told my mom I was going to Marquette and she said, 'Where is it and how are we paying for it?'" Grill said. "I said, 'I have no idea.' I just felt this was going to be an opportunity and it's turned out to be the best decision I've ever made."

Amplo found another diamond in the rough in defender Jake Richard of West Chester, Pa., who had limited lacrosse skills but ran the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds.

"He was a great high school football player but he loves lacrosse, so we took a chance on him," Amplo said. "I think he's the best short-stick defensive midfielder in the country. To put it in other terms, he's a shutdown corner. We can put him on one of the better offensive players and we know he's going to win that matchup.

"He's a four-year starter, a wonderful human being and he probably should have played Division 1 football because that's what people saw in him."

The one thing Amplo's recruits have in common is that they wanted to prove they could play lacrosse at the highest level.

"When you have a chip on your shoulder, it's a lot easier to get up at 5:30 in the morning and do whatever it takes to compete at the highest level and be the best version of yourself that you can be," Grill said. "When somebody has told you you're not good enough and you have an opportunity to prove them wrong, you're willing to make the sacrifices it takes to do that.

"We're using this opportunity at Marquette to flourish."

Not that it's been easy. The first year was beyond tough. Amplo is a demanding coach and practices weren't easy. There was no carrot at the end of the stick — no games — and a half-dozen players quit the team.

"It was developing a survival-type instinct," Grill said. "Playing in the NCAA Tournament or the Big East championship wasn't even fathomable."

One obstacle was the lacrosse culture at Marquette. Which is to say, there wasn't one. The nation's fastest-growing sport was little more than a curiosity on campus back then.

That first year, Grill was standing at a bus stop wearing MU lacrosse gear when someone approached him and asked if the players rode horses. No, Grill patiently explained, that's polo.

"I'm like, this is why I came to the Midwest to play lacrosse?" he said.

Four years later, people are texting Grill's girlfriend's father, a Marquette alum, and asking how they can get tickets for the game Saturday. Valley Fields holds just under 2,000 for lacrosse and the game sold out in 15 minutes, though Amplo said the university was looking into putting up netting behind the goals, which would allow the student-section seats for soccer to be used.

"I feel the rallying effect the alumni and the university are having around our program," Grill said. "I feel that. People telling us they're proud of us, it kind of just blows my mind. It feels good to have that positive impact on people and bring positive light to this fantastic university."

Marquette's success has opened recruiting doors that would have been slammed shut a few years ago. Grill's younger brother, Nick — New Jersey's high school defensive player of the year — has committed to the Golden Eagles.

"I told him, 'You've seen my progression, you see how much we love Coach Amplo. What other school is going to offer you a better experience?'" Grill said. "My mom said, 'Do you really want to go anywhere else?'

"To be a part of it at the foundation, it's humbling. Marquette lacrosse is going to be a program where everyone wants to go. We want to make this a destination school."

Amplo has told his assistants he doesn't want to recruit any player who is not capable of helping Marquette beat the top teams in the nation.

"It's forced us to raise our standard and now, hopefully with some validation, those kids that we're talking to see that Marquette can do the same thing that a school like Denver did and compete with the best," he said.

At the beginning of the season, Amplo forwarded to his players a photo of the statue of Al McGuire, arms raised in victory, in the lobby of the Al McGuire Center. Superimposed over the photo were the words "Beat Denver." He asked the players to use it as the screen shot on their phones.

"Anytime a kid would look down at his phone he would see it," Amplo said. "That was our vision quest. We felt like the next step in our program was to have the mind-set that we can compete with the best. Truthfully, I never thought that we would have an opportunity to beat them in that environment."

As big a victory as it was, the Golden Eagles again are playing David, this time to North Carolina's Goliath.

When Amplo gathered his players the other day at practice, he reminded them that North Carolina has won four national championships and has made 31 NCAA Tournament appearances, and that the Tar Heels' roster includes a couple dozen high school All-Americans.

"I told them, 'You guys are a bunch of nobodies. The only people who wanted you was us. But now you're here with an opportunity to beat the team that didn't want you,'" Amplo said. "I said, 'The only time you were on North Carolina's campus is when you paid to go to their lacrosse camp. You paid for their coaches' vacations.'

"So, yeah, we do have that David vs. Goliath mentality. I think that's who we've been from the start. We've just been that group of kids from Milwaukee who care about each other and want to prove themselves on the national scene in this sport."

Send email to gdamato@journalsentinel.com

AT A GLANCE

■ What: North Carolina (8-6) at Marquette (11-4) in a first-round NCAA lacrosse tournament matchup.

■ When: 1:30 p.m. Saturday

■ Where: Marquette's Valley Fields

■ TV: ESPNU