ACC Foes Battle for the National Championship
One major concern is the lack of extra man opportunities, for the Terps. The Terps only had one EMO on Saturday and only one in the previous meeting against UVA. The lack of drawing penalties maybe due to the Terps conservative offensive style, but to beat a UVA team that seems to be firing on cylinders, now, the Terps must get more EMO's to win. MD has to know the UVA will most likely have differnt looks on both ends of the field and should be prepared for that. I would like to see MD get more physical with UVA's attackman, of course this can be a dangerous strategy as if one check is missed, in the box, UVA will most likely score. But maybe hitting Stanwick and Bocklet around will throw them off of there games.
Duke Looks to Defend There Title
The Terps have the nation's seventh ranked face off guy in and Curtis Holmes and Holmes is a big reason why the Terps were able to upset the top seeded Syracuse Orange. Holmes winning those faceoffs, last weekend, helped MD keep possession of the ball and the ball out of the Orange's snipers. Look for MD's offense to do the same as last weekend, with long possessions and a lot of "keep it in" calls from the refs; as Duke's offense is also high powered and John Tillman would like Duke to have as few possessions as possible. The Terps' offense is led by seniors Grant Catalino and team points leader Ryan Young. Catalino has 26 goals and 10 assists, while Ryan Young has 19 goals and 27 assists.
Heros Summer Preview:
After six months of practices and games it comes down to the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland for the national championship on Monday. Maryland won the only meeting of the year, 12-7, in Charlottesville. And yes I will brag as I correctly picked both UVA and MD to win there games and I accurately predicted that the MD would score nine goals. Maybe I should finally start getting paid for this sports gig. UVA is playing for there fifth national title and is in there tenth title game appearance, with there last coming in 2006 where they beat UMass, 15-7. Maryland is playing for there second and is in there eleventh title game appearance and first since 1998 were they lost to Princeton, 15-5. Here's what the Cavs and Terps need to to do to raise the trophy on Monday.
UVA had an all out dominating performance over Denver as the Cavs easily took care of the Pioneers 14-8. It was easy to tell which team had played in Baltimore a year earlier and which team didn't. The attack unit of Juniors Chris Bocklet and Steel Stanwick, and freshman Mark Cockerton all had hat tricks on Saturday. UVA's man up unit was 50% successful on the day and Chase Carraro won 11 of 24 face offs. UVA's defense did a great job of limiting Denver's two top scorers, Mark Matthews and Alex Demopoulos, to one goal each and the Cavs defense will have to do the same against the Terps attack unit of Grant Catalino and Ryan Young.
Overall UVA struggled against the Terps in everything that worked for the Cavs yesterday. Maryland's defense held the Cavs high powered attack unit to only three goals. UVA's man up unit was 1 for 5 against the Terps. The Cavs defensive unit was torched by Ryan Young as he had six points, but the good news is that the Cavs held Grant Catalino scoreless. If Maryland is to aggressive, on Monday, and commits multiple penalties UVA must have the man up performance that they had on Saturday and not a month ago against MD. I'm sure Dom Starsia has been watching film of that game and will make sure that his Cavs don't make the same mistakes as before against the Terps.
It was easy to see that Maryland was feeding off of the hometown, in Baltimore, on Saturday as they came out and dominated all but the first two minutes in a 9-4 win over Duke. The two most impressive things about MD was there physical play and play of redshirt freshman Niko Amato in between the pipes. The Terps came out hitting and hitting hard as they were able to hound Duke's midfield in between the boxes and cause turnovers and fast break opportunities. Credit also goes to the officials for letting the Terps play there physical game. Often, in college lacrosse, I see officials flagging players for clean shoulder to shoulder hits, just because it's a hard hit does not mean it's a penalty; it's a contact sport. Nick Amato had 13 saves on the day and looked like a seasoned vet instead of a freshman playing in his first final four as he turned away Jordan Wolf and Zach Howell multiple times. The Terps did a great job of limiting Duke's top scorers as the team leader in goals, Zach Howell had only one goal on the evening and freshman Jordan Wolf didn't register a point at all. Grant Catalino had a hat trick and junior attackman, Joe Cummings, had three points on the evening.
One major concern is the lack of extra man opportunities, for the Terps. The Terps only had one EMO on Saturday and only one in the previous meeting against UVA. The lack of drawing penalties maybe due to the Terps conservative offensive style, but to beat a UVA team that seems to be firing on cylinders, now, the Terps must get more EMO's to win. MD has to know the UVA will most likely have differnt looks on both ends of the field and should be prepared for that. I would like to see MD get more physical with UVA's attackman, of course this can be a dangerous strategy as if one check is missed, in the box, UVA will most likely score. But maybe hitting Stanwick and Bocklet around will throw them off of there games. As is the case with every ACC matchup, this one is a toss up. UVA has the experience of being to the semi finals last year and it would seem that the Cavs would poised to win it all this year. On the other hand the Terps have been waiting to long for this moment and have the hot goaltender in Niko Amato. The biggest matchup of the day will be at the faceoff X. Curtis Holmes, for the Terps, won 11 of 27 faceoffs on Saturday while Chase Carraro won 11 of 24. Holmes won the first matchup 14 to 8. But as stated before, UVA has had plenty of time to watch of film of what went wrong against the Terps the first time. I'm going to take the Terps as the physicality, in the midfield, caused many turnovers on Saturday and disrupted Dukes offense. If MD does that on Monday, College Park will be setting some couches on fire. Terps win 11-7.
Duke Looks to Defend There Title
Once again, the men's lacrosse champion will be crowned in Baltimore. This year features traditional powers and one new comer. Seventh seeded Virginia, will be taking on sixth seeded Denver, and fifth seeded Duke will continue to defend last year's championship as they take on ACC rival and unseeded Maryland. This will be the third time, this spring, that Duke and MD have met with each team winning one game.
Virginia vs Denver:
First off, congratulations to UVA head coach, Dom Starsia on becoming the all time winningest head coach in division I men's lacrosse history. Starsia and the rest of his UVA have been through a lot in the past year and the only way to make everything complete will be to win UVA's fifth national championship. But will the Cavaliers have enough to eliminate upset minded Denver? UVA has the nation's fourth ranked offense and the top ranked man up unit in the country. That's because Steel Stanwick is fourth in the country in points, with 64 and Chris Bocklet is sixth in the country with goals scored. Obviously, the Cavaliers have missed some of there offense, with the Braton brothers being suspended, but it has worked so far for Whaa-Hoo nation.
Defensively, the Cavs are lead by senior goalie, Adam Ghitelman. Ghitelman has a save percentage of .532 this year. It's not the highlight saves that Dom Starsia is impressed with, but it's the leadership that Ghitelman has shown throughout the season. Ghitelman is always the one that is firing the team up when the team is down in a game. In front of Ghitelman, the UVA defense will be using a zone and soft man to man scheme. The zone defense, is becoming more and more common in college lacrosse and UVA must confuse the Denver offense if UVA is to be playing on Memorial Day. Despite not having one of the top ranked defense's, stat wise, UVA has only allowed double digit goals in half of it's games this year.
The new kids on the block, the Denver Pioneers. Yes lacrosse has gone west of the Mississippi. This became apparent when Bill Tierney decided to bolt from Princeton, where he won six national championships, and moved west to build up the Denver Pioneers. It's just about safe to say mission complete as Tierney lead Denver to there first NCAA tournament appearance and first Final Four appearance in school history, this year. Ok, enough of the fun facts, here's how the Pioneers got to this point. The Pioneers have the second ranked offense in the country and seventh ranked man up unit. Junior, Mark Matthews is fifth in the country in goals and sixth in the country with points. While the offense starts and end with Matthews the Pioneers offense also has Alex Demopoulos, who can either score or dish it out as he has 29 goals and 28 assists on the season.
A way that Denver can beat UVA is in the ground ball battle as the Pioneers are sixth in the country with ground balls won. Denver can create fast break opportunities off of the ground balls and that's the way the Pioneers can continue this Cinderella run.
Hate to be that guy, and trust me I'm no fan of UVA, but I think the fun ends for Denver here. Bill Tierney is doing a tremendous job with the Denver program, but this Denver team has not experienced final four weekend yet. There's a huge difference between playing in front of 20,000 in Denver as opposed to playing in front of 60,000 in a NFL stadium. UVA just has to much fire power and to much veteran leadership for Denver to handle. Cavs win, in a shootout, 14-12.
Duke vs Maryland:
In my opinion, the Duke vs MD lacrosse rivalry is hotter than the basketball one. The two teams have played each other 12 times since 2004 with the Terps winning seven times, while Duke has won five. In the first meeting of the year, the Terps held a halftime lead, but wound up losing 9-8 in OT. Then in the ACC semi's the Blue Devils had a 7-4 lead in the fourth quater, but then The Terps took over and won 11-9. So the game plan for both Duke and MD should be not to be leading until the last minute, if the previous two meetings trends hold up.
The Terps have the nation's seventh ranked face off guy in and Curtis Holmes and Holmes is a big reason why the Terps were able to upset the top seeded Syracuse Orange. Holmes winning those faceoffs, last weekend, helped MD keep possession of the ball and the ball out of the Orange's snipers. Look for MD's offense to do the same as last weekend, with long possessions and a lot of "keep it in" calls from the refs; as Duke's offense is also high powered and John Tillman would like Duke to have as few possessions as possible. The Terps' offense is led by seniors Grant Catalino and team points leader Ryan Young. Catalino has 26 goals and 10 assists, while Ryan Young has 19 goals and 27 assists.Defensively, the Terps have the fourth ranked defense in the country, with allowing seven goals per game on average. While the Terps man down unit doesn't allow a goal 73% of the time. Redshirt Freshman, Nick Amato will be in between the pipes. Amato has a GAA of 6.87 and a save percentage of .578. The Terps defensive core will be faced with stopping both Zach Howell and Jordan Wolf as both of them both have over 50 points on the season.
The Blue Devils have the nations fifth ranked offense in the country which is lead by senior Zach Howell, 42 goals and 16 assists and by true freshman Jordan Wolf, 31 goals and 20 assists. The dangerous part about this offense is that the Blue Devils can play either a up and down tempo or a slow it down low scoring tempo. Which can easily confuse opposing defenses so look for head coach John Danowski to switch up the offense a lot. This year's Duke team has used a mix of vetarans and underclassmen, but this is the time for the upperclassmen to step up, since they know what it takes to win a championship.
On the defensive side of the field, sophomore Dan Wigrizer will be in between the pipes. Wigrizer has a GAA of 9.21 and a save percentage of .556. The young defense will once again be faced with the task of stopping Ryan Young and Grant Catalino. If the long poles can stop Young and Catalino Duke will not be in town on Monday to defend there championship.
This game is basically a coin toss pick. Both of the previous two meetings have been competitive and close. The twist, in round three, will be that MD will have the home field advantage and the previous two games were played on Duke's turf. Overall I think MD has been waiting for this moment for way two long and the fact that the Terps were unseeded basically woke the sleeping grizzly. The Terps will ride the home field advantage and beat a somewhat young Duke team 9-7.
Heros Summer Preview:
Team Beej
Well summer is here and nothing says summer in Maryland like Hero’s lacrosse and with play in the men’s league getting under way tomorrow night, one team looks to take the summer crown in the men’s league. That team is Team Beej; the team is a combination of club lacrosse players and college varsity players. Most of the players on this team are products of Spalding high school and other MD high schools. Team Beej is coached by Brenden Jones who has spent 3 years as an assistant coach to former Spalding lacrosse head coach Zach Burke. This will be Jones’ first stint as a head coach “I’m very excited to be coaching this team, I learned a lot as an assistant at Spalding and hopefully those lessons that I learned from Coach Burke will pay off with this team,” says Jones, “This team is very talented and the expectations of this team is to compete for the championship this summer. Along with the talent, we have also worked very hard in practice. We had 2 a day practices for the past 2 weeks and because of that both the offense and defense are running on all cylinders. We also have done a lot of running and I don’t expect us to lose a game at all this summer because of conditioning. We had some tough morning practices due to people being hungover, but we were able to work through it. Another plus is that due to having 2 a days this team has become very close to each other and from my experience as a coach, the teams that tend to be close to each other tend to win more games.” Not only is Jones the head coach but he will also be a playing for the team “I think me playing in the games will help out the team a lot because everyone will be able to hear the calls instead of listening for calls from the sideline, that’s a huge advantage we will have over other teams.”Offense:
On the offensive side of the ball Team Beej will feature two division 1 players in Andrew Scalley and Mike Poiter. Scalley was a key part for the offense of Mount St. Mary’s as he was able to score 3 goals in MSM’s first round loss to UVA. Scalley will once again be one of the go to men on Team Beej “Scalley has a tremendous scoring ability and we will look to use that this whole summer.” Says Coach Jones. When teams start to focus in on Andrew Scalley, Team Beej will then look to Mike Poiter, a player on Maryland’s lacrosse team. “Mike Poiter has a great shot from 10 to 15 yards, it’s almost unstoppable. I think that when you have two key offensive weapons that are pretty hard to stop, your offense becomes very hard to defend because you cannot just double one player then leave the other wide open. Poiter and Scalley will definitely cause problems for opposing defenses.” Says Coach Jones. Coach Jones will also be taking the Princeton offense used in basketball and make it into lacrosse offense “I’ve always been a fan of the Princeton offense and I think that it will work in lacrosse also.” At the faceoff X will be Matt King who will be playing at Salisbury this year. “Matt is one of those faceoff guys that will beat with skill and speed not by power,” Says Coach Jones.
Defense:
On the defensive side of the ball, Team Beej will look to a variety of long polls and short stick d middies starting with Mike Jones aka Short Fat who will anchor the defense. “Mike or Short Fat is a solid defender, he did a great job playing for Maryland club lax this past year and we will definitely put him on the other teams top scorer every week,” Says Jones and asked were the nickname came from for Mike, Jones says “It’s been a joke since high school, we joke cause we love.” Team Beej will feature two great short stick middies in Andy Bieler and Chris Haines. Andy Bieler played club lacrosse at Villanova this past year and uses his speed to defend. “Bieler has great speed and will be useful to create fast break chances” Says Jones, “if the situation comes, Bieler may have to be a full time middie if we need him and that’s a plus to have a defensive short stick middie that can also play offense.” Chris Haines is coming back from a 2 ½ year retirement from lacrosse as he was busy playing Rugby in Europe and for the US national team. “It was apparent during the first few practices that Haines was a little rusty; he also came into camp over weight and has been working on getting back into shape. Despite those two minuses, I really like Chris Haines’ heart. He may not be the best player on the field, but he will out hustle you to every ball and isn’t afraid at all to lay down the wood,” Says Jones. At long stick middie will be Tim Ryan who played his club ball at Notre Dame, “Tim is a great defender and will be seeing a lot of playing time as long stick middie as we don’t have anyone else that can play that position as of right now,” Says Jones. In goal will be Salisbury product Mitch Meredith. “Meredith did not see a lot of action at Salisbury this spring, but he can still can the job done for us this summer.”
National Championship Preview
Well here it is the men’s lacrosse division I national championship game. From the start of the season in February with plenty of snow still left on the ground to the now warm weather in Baltimore we are finally down to two teams. For the first since 1992 when the Princeton Tigers won their first national championship, a school will win the championship for the first in there school’s history. The two teams featured are 5th seeded Duke and unseeded Notre Dame; this is the first time since UMass in 2006 that an unseeded team has made the national championship game. This is Duke’s 3rd appearance in the championship game, first since 2007 when they lost 11-10 to Johns Hopkins, for the Fighting Irish this is their first appearance in the championship game. Notre Dame beat Duke in February earlier this season by a score of 11-7 in Durham. This game will feature to different offensive styles and whichever team can control the game with their offense will play a big factor into which team will win.
Let’s start with the unseeded Notre Dame Fighting Irish; Rudy should be proud of this underdog team from South Bend. The Irish ended the regular season by losing 3 of the 5 final games and finished the regular season with a record of 7-6. Despite the Duke win being the only signature win of the season for the Irish, Notre Dame still received an at large bid to the dance. And as the saying goes “all you have to do is make the playoffs to win it all” has proven true for this team as they beat Princeton at Princeton and a heavily favored Maryland team to make it to Baltimore this year. In the semi final game against Cornell, Norte Dame used a defense first mentality to beat a highly motivated Big Red team. The Irish rode the hot goal tending of senior goal tender Scott Rodgers as he made 16 saves and 8 saves in the 4th quarter in the win over the Big Red. The defensive in front of Rodgers did a great job on Cornell’s offensive stars as they held both Ryan Hurley and Rob Pannell to just 2 goals apiece for both players. Good thing the Notre Dame defense is firing on all cylinders as a unit right now because this defensive unit will face another pair of great offensive players in Duke’s Max Quinzani and Ned Crotty who combined for 7 points in their win over UVA on Saturday. Rodgers needs to remain hot in net and the defense in front of him needs to slow down Quinzani and Crotty for Notre Dame to come out on top. Duke went on a run of 7 straight goals in there win over UVA the Irish cannot allow a run like that to happen against them on Monday. On the offensive side of the ball, Neal Hicks and Zach Brenneman need to show up once again on Monday as they combined for 7 out of the 12 goals Notre Dame scored on Saturday. Notre Dame needs to turn this into a half field game as they run a ball control offense. If the Irish get down big early or let in a late run of goals by Duke, Notre Dame will not win this game with that ball control offense that normally chews up a lot of time on the clock. On the other hand; if Notre Dame gets up big they can use that ball control offense to chew off time and keep the ball out of Quinzani’s and Crotty’s sticks to lead them to victory.
Duke comes in with a record of 12-4 in the regular season, Dukes 4 losses came to all 3 ACC teams and of course there opponent Notre Dame. That 11-7 loss to Notre Dame was only the team’s second game of the season so there might still have been some extra snow on the Blue Devils sticks at the time, but since then Duke has been one of the top teams all spring long. Duke’s road to the championship game includes wins over Johns Hopkins, rival North Carolina and Saturday’s semi final win over UVA, in one of the best games of the tournament. In the game against the Cavaliers, the Duke defense was able to limit the Bratton brothers to just 2 points combined, but allowed Steele Stanwick and Brian Carroll to have 5 goals in the game. The Duke defense will only have to worry about Notre Dame’s Neal Hicks and Zach Brenneman on the defensive end. Even though the Blue Devils defense allowed Stanwick and Carroll to score goals, they were able to shut down the very athletic and very skilled Bratton brothers by having the slides leave earlier than usual when they had the ball. This is very impressive and if Duke’s defense plays like this again it should be an easy day on this end of the field for Duke. On the offensive side once again the ball we go through Max Quinzani and Ned Crotty who had 5 goals combined on Saturday. Both players were on the team during Duke’s 2007 loss to Hopkins in the championship game and would love for their last game in a Duke uniform to be Duke’s first championship. That will happen if Duke can get there fast paced offense going and turn this game into a track meet this should be Duke’s day. If Duke gets down by 3 or 4 goals on Monday they should not panic as they went on a 7 straight goal run against UVA and the face paced offense means that Duke can make up a 3 or 4 goal deficit quickly. However, if they are down by 2 goals with under a minute left Notre Dame’s ball control offense will not help Duke as the Irish will most likely just pass the ball around the box for the final minute of the game with a lead, if this happens the Duke defensive unit has to remain patient and not commit a slashing or checking penalty when trying to win the ball back.
I cannot believe this, but I’m picking Duke to win this game even though I will be cheering for the Irish at M & T Bank on Monday. In the end I just think Duke’s fast paced offense will be too much for Notre Dame, remember Duke’s seniors were on the team during the 2007 championship game loss and they would love for nothing more to be remembered as the first national championship team at Duke. Duke wins 10-6, Max Quinzani has a big day en route to the championship.
Lacrosse Final Four Preview
Well here it is the men's lacrosse final four is just about a day away. This year a lacrosse champion will be crowned in Baltimore, where the final four belongs. Having the lacrosse final four in Baltimore is what Army Navy means to Philadelphia, the Red River Shootout at the Cotton Bowl, the College World Series at Rossenblatt Stadium etc, it just belongs in Baltimore. Yes I know to expand the sport of lacrosse the final four will be at different sites, and I do understand that, but there is something special about crabs and championship lacrosse. Anyways on to the teams coming to Baltimore this weekend. Out of the four competing two were expected to be there two were not. Lets start with the unlikely matchup between unseeded Notre Dame and 7th seeded Cornell.
The Fighting Irish come in with a record of 9-6 during the regular season. Notre Dame is kind of like the Philadelphia Flyers, not to impressive of a regular season nor was the schedule. The Irish did have a key 11-7 win over Duke in their first game of the season which could play key if both the Irish and Blue Devils win on Saturday. But despite not to impressive of a regular season, Notre Dame got into the dance and proved why they belong by beating Princeton at Princeton 8-5 in the first round and then one week later went back to Princeton and beat the 3rd seeded Maryland Terrapins 7-5. For me Notre Dame faces a tough test in Cornell, the Big Red were one goal away from raising the championship trophy last year so the Irish better bring the fight in them and that'll have to go through the midfielders of Grant Kerbs, Zach Brenneman and David Earl who has 6 goals in two games this post season. If Cornell decides to focus in on Earl more it will be up to Kerbs and Brenneman to support him on offensive end of the ball. On defense, Scott Rodgers will have to remain hot in between the pipes for the Irish and the defensive unit overall well have to play well if Notre Dame wants to stay in Baltimore a little longer.
For the Cornell Big Red, they went 13-5 this season, got killed by UVA in March by a score of 12-4, lost another one goal game to Syracuse 8-7 and split the series with Ivy League foe Princeton. Cornell is the most dangerous team out of the four here this weekend. Duke and UVA played a much more tougher schedule, Duke and UVA have more talent top to bottom some of you may say. But the one thing that Cornell has that neither UVA, Duke or Notre Dame have is motivation. The Big Red were one goal away from beating the Syracuse Orange for the title last year and you do not think that this team will be extremely motivated? When they are this close once again this year. Even if Cornell had a team of all sophomores who are no names I would still pick them because they this close to winning it one year ago. Ryan Hurley who had a 5 point day in there win over Army last weekend will once again be the main offensive man for Cornell as he as been this whole season in scoring 40 plus goals. Cornell also has Rob Pannell and Scott Mock that can score for them also. Cornell wins this matchup 8-6.
Now on onto the game at 6, top seeded UVA vs 5th seeded Duke in a rubber match of the season series as Duke defeated the Cavaliers in Charolettesville 13-9 and one week later in the semi finals of the ACC tournament the Cavs took down the Blue Devils 16-12 on neutral ground. Some people believe that this game should be played on Monday instead of on Saturday and rightfully so there will be a lot of stars on the field Saturday evening in Baltimore. From likes of the Bratton brothers on UVA to Max Quinzani and Ned Crotty for the Blue Devils. If the defenses do not show up for this game, the score may look more like a Ravens game is being played instead of a lacrosse game.
UVA has a record of 16-1 and was ranked number 1 for most of the season. The Cavs had an easy time with Mount St. Mary's but then ran into some competition with Stony Brook in the quarterfinals, but pulled out a 10-9 win on Long Island last weekend. What has made UVA so successful for the past years is Shamel Bratton and Rhamel Bratton combo. And they are deadly as they have combined for 11 points in two games this seasons with Shamel doing the scoring and Rhamel dishing out the assists. What about just focusing on the Bratton brothers defensively? Sure go ahead the Cavs have a deadly attack man in Steele Stanwick who has 6 points in this years playoffs and Brain Carroll who has 6 goals during the playoffs. One red flag for UVA is that they only won 5 out 23 faceoffs last weekend, faceoffs can play key if the game turns into a face paced 15 14 game.
Duke has a record of 14-4 with losses to Maryland, Notre Dame, rival UNC and UVA. The Blue Devils have also won 12 out there past 13 games. Besides Max Quinzani on offense the Blue Devils will look to Ned Crotty who has 14 points this postseason for offensive help against UVA's star defensemen Ken Clausen and Ryan Nizolek. Duke also has there fair share of defenseman with Parker Mckee and Tom Montelli who will most likely be matched up against the Brattons and or Carroll. The key for a Duke win in this game will be to limit the Brattons scoring and dominate the faceoffs. If Stony Brook had two more offensive players they would have beaten UVA. Duke is in the same situation as the Phoenix Suns, the Suns know that they are not going to stop Kobe Bryant they just have to limit is scoring. That is what the Blue Devil defense will have to do against the Brattons. But I think the Brattons will have a big day against Duke's goaltenders UVA wins 12 10.
