ACC Foes Battle for the National Championship

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 Defend There Title This Weekend

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.