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.
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