College Lacrosse Thread
 

Even with a wind chill of about 6 degrees, UMass started their season on Saturday with a convincing 11-7 home win over Hofstra. Should move up to #8 in the polls with Georgetown getting doubled up against Maryland. Almost all the other top teams held serve, with Johns Hopkins getting tested by Albany (10-8 final) - not too surprising considering what Hopkins lost to graduation and had injured and some of Albany's players (Merrick Thompson is probably the most underrated attackman in D1.)

I think UMass has its best team since 2003. Morris at attack, Reid on D and the scoring depth from the midfield in particular are strengths. Unfortunately UMass won't play anyone higher than 15th or so (Albany/Loyola/Penn St) until late March/April, but this weekend is setting up some nice matchups. Hopkins-Princeton, Duke-Maryland and Syracuse-Virginia. Anyone on the forum gonna be following those games?

I may not get out to see a game live until the final four, but I'll be folllowing.

I'll be following the alma mater's season, per usual. But probably won't go to any games until it gets warmer...

Go 'Cuse and Go Canisius!

Go SU. Any chance JHopkins or UVA will eliminate their minor sports? ;)

It's fun to watch this on TV. Mainly because it makes me wanna go play toccer. But still. It's a good game.

I'm considering going to a lacrosse game for the first time this year. Unfortunately, it would be to see the school at which my wife teaches. They've only had a lacrosse program for two or three years now. I guess it'd be better than seeing their football team. Last season was their first ever, and they only won once (but I was there to see it!).

Anyway, uh, yeah, I might go see some lacrosse since there's no Arena Football around here.

Maybe Indoor Lacrosse?

lol...at least it'll be better than a bad college team.

Brown/UMass this saturday. Brown seems to be playing a softer schedule this year compared to seasons past and haven't acquitted themselves well when playing anybody of note. Who knows though, a surprising result does happen from time to time with this series (though there is less drama now that this game is no longer the regular season-ender for either team)...

Woot!

UMass takes the rematch with Hofstra 11-10 in Overtime to advance to the first Final Four in school history! Down 10-5 with 8 minutes to go, scores 5 straight to take it to OT and after a save by our freshman goalie gets the win. Jake Deane, the "Terminator" at the X, wins 20 of 25 faceoffs with the help of the wings and another freshman, Jimmy Connolly, scores 5 goals to lead the team.

Play the winner of Maryland-Princeton (tomorrow @12) next Saturday in Philly. Other semifinal will match the winners of Johns Hopkins-Syracuse (starting now, on ESPNU, probably some local FSN/Comcast channels) and Georgetown-#1 and undefeated Virginia.

Told you John Hopkins and UVA should have elimintated their minor sports.

Somewhat unrelated, but lacrosse just became a varsity HS sport in Minnesota this past week. Thought it was pretty cool.

I believe you mean The Johns Hopkins University, who Syracuse dispatched 13-12 in quarterfinal #2. Most likely on to UVa for them.

If the high seeds hold, and UVa and Maryland make it in... this will be the first final four I can remember where there weren't teams I will be rooting *aggressivley* against. I don't care one way or the other about UMass, but I root for Syracuse, Virginia, and Maryland in that order, more or less.

Yeah, I usually say John instead of Johns. It rolls off the tongue better even though I have to keep from snarling when I say either way.

A rough tournament for the Ivy League. 4 bids to the men's tournament (though the Harvard selection was a near travesty), only Princeton remains.

The Cornell upset over Duke doesn't look nearly as impressive as it did a couple of months ago. But then again, in hindsight, Duke hadn't really proved it could beat a winning team before their season ended...

Oh, I was just kinda joking because I find it just as annoying as when people talk about The Ohio State University... but unlike more popular sports, in the lacrosse world you actually run into Hopkins people.

I'm really rooting for Maryland tomorrow, partly because they've always been my favorite team other than UMass, but also because I hate Princeton's style/tempo and think it would cause more problems for UMass than a matchup with Maryland. The UVa/G'Town game I'm fairly agnostic about, but I think I'll root for G'Town just for the underdog factor.

Maryland/Princeton @ 12 with UVa/G'Town to follow at Towson's campus. If you don't get ESPNU, hxxp://www.laxpower.com/graphics/espn_qf.gif has a list of other TV outlets covering the games.

I still think Cornell was the 2nd or 3rd best team in the country this year... UMass is too inconsistent, but when they come to play, they can beat anyone except maybe UVA. Cornell definitely got screwed on that seeding (again). As for Harvard, they probably didn't deserve to be in, but you have to have another team to replace them, and none of the Loyola/Towson/Penn St/Delaware grouping presented a strong argument.

Maryland builds a lead and stalls out the game to beat Princeton 11-6 and Virginia turns it on in the 3rd quarter and beats Georgetown 20-8.

Official order hasn't been announced, but the smart money is on UMass-Maryland at 11:30 AM next Saturday followed by Syracuse-Virginia at about 2.

I'll be there.

YAY!

I was just talking to somebody about this, that MD was doing well in the NCAA lax tourney, glad to see they didn't disappoint. :)

/tk

Just got back from today... UVa looked really, really good in just dismantling Syracuse. 17-10 and it wasn't really that close. Ouch.

UVa - UMass on Monday. I'll take the 'hoos.

Yes, yes they did. 2nd half vs. G'Town and opening 16 minutes today is the best offensive lacrosse possibly since the 1990 Syracuse team.That's where the smart money is, but we've just beaten the #2,3 and 4 teams in a row, so let's see if the Cinderella story can continue. After the first 16 minutes today UVa started playing waaayyyyy too aggressively on defense, getting fancy on offense and let Syracuse back into it. If Syracuse's EMO was working, they could have gotten back within 2-3 goals after 3 quarters, so basically I'm hoping Virginia plays like that for a whole game and maybe we can sneak out a win late.

Noticed that Brown beat UMass this past weekend. I'm not sure if Brown is for real this year, but were people expecting UMass to drop off this much from last year?

UMass only lost 3 seniors, but they were possibly the best attackman (Morris) defenseman (Reid) and Faceoff guy (Deane) in the country. The defense has done well, but no one has stepped up on offense (note the 4 goals scored vs. Brown, although the weather certainly didn't help) and we've struggled mightily on faceoffs (we've since moved a freshman in there and he's doing better, a little less than 50/50). Have to figure out who the alpha players are on offense and basically win the ECAC to make the tournament this year. And the 3 losses prior to Brown were @Hofstra, @Albany (#2 in the country :eek: ) and vs. Yale by a combined 4 goals, so it's not like the drop-off has been huge, we're just losing 1 goal games instead of winning them this year.

With Brown I don't know yet. They've got the wins over UMass and Hofstra, but only beat Bellarmine by a goal. They play a number of decent teams in the coming weeks, but the only 2 top 10 teams are Princeton and Cornell who they get the last two weekends.

Yeah, it does look like UMass' losses have been close.

Brown's defense has been pretty stingy as well, but as you say, they'll definitely be tested as they start playing the Ivy schedule. But so far, this is more than I expected--Brown's definitely in rebuilding mode with a new HC after falling on hard times the past few years.

In other news, Brown is recruiting Reade Seligmann (I've read that he's also being recruited by Harvard for football). I kind of have mixed feelings about it--there's definitely baggage, but ultimately I think he could be a potentially good get for Brown (usually someone with Seligmann's academic/athletic potential ends up at Princeton or south of the Mason-Dixon line). It really depends if Seligmann thinks he can fit in with (or at least stomach) the culture at Brown. Also Seligmann doesn't have any priors--I would have greater issue if they were recruiting some of the other guys that have convictions for things more serious than alcohol...

annual bump

Very entertaining first Semifinal between Syracuse and Virginia. Nice comeback by Syracuse. I was very impressed with the Virginia goaltender though.

Nice comeback there, and a great OT period once the timeouts were out of the way early.

Now on to see Duke's semi-pro team roll Hopkins. (For those that don't follow lacrosse closely, all the Duke players got an extra year of eligibility after that scandal, and they have like 6 starters playing their 5th year, including returning Tewaaraton winner Danowski.)

The Duke attack trio of Danowski, Zach Greer (all-time NCAA goal scoring leader, and he has another year left) and Max Quinzani (Massachusetts kid I played with back when he was like 12 and I was in HS) might be the best ever. Hopkins does have the 2 1-goal victories in the last 3 Final Four's.

Another great game going on. Quinzani just hit the post on a shot that would have tied the game at 9, Hopkins comes right down and takes the 10-8 lead. 4 minutes to go.

Duke shot saved in the last 2 seconds again, Hopkins wins by 1. Pietramala shows why he's the best defensive coach in the game (I put him above Tierney) and Hopkins goalie had 17 saves and the game of his life.

Watched that Virginia-Syracuse game when we were out at lunch. What a finish.

Always fun to see Duke lose.

The Hopkins keeper is our pediatrician's son - seems like a good kid. Nice to see him have a huge game at a good time.

Reminds me of watching the best goaltending performance I'd ever seen (by Tillman Johnson of UVA), then having my mom go "Oh, by the way, you know that kid. He lived down the street from you on Shipwright, and you used to play street hockey against him all the time." Really, couldn't have mentioned that earlier?

Gvozden really did have a great game. People might focus on the late saves he had, but IMO it was really the 3-4 he made in the opening minutes. None were spectacular, but any one of those early goals go in and JHU is on its heels from the start, fresh off the 17-6 memory.

Got to see them play at the dome in NCAAs this year. Had my SU hat and Canisius practice shirt on :)

How many times has it been SU and Hopkins?

This is the 5th, but it's been quite a while. Three in a row in the late 80s.

Yeah, this is why I was cheering Hopkins on since I don't like Duke, I want to see a classic SU/Hopkins title match and Hopkins was the underdog.

It should be another great game of contrasting styles tho I think SU is more used to slowdown than Duke was.

I'll be happily watching it in HD tomorrow :)

I've always liked lacrosse. I remember watching the Detroit Turbo games back in the early 90's. Of course, that was indoor lacrosse, but it was still really fun to watch.

If SU can stop shooting into the goalie's chest they could start pulling away...

Excellent win for Syracuse, and quite a story after the last few years and 2007 in particular. I've never seen this from SU before... patient, disciplined, hustling, winning faceoffs, strong on defense... it's refreshing, really. Great win today, they honestly looked much the better team out there.

Woohoo@@!!!!@@

Gvozden and Syracuse's poor shooting combined to keep Hopkins in the game 1st half, but other then Rabil they had no one on offense and Syracuse started finishing.

Kind of annoying it was 4 of the same elite again, but those were 3 well-played, exciting games. Always good for the sport. See you guys in the thread next Memorial Day weekend.

F THE CUSE

Go anyone else!

Ya'll have to excuse VIPPY when he's loaded up on that vile crap he calls beer.

Staropramen = the bomb, kind sir

The Cuse still = the suck

That's right, I forgot where you were. :)

You can take the hillbilly out of the hills, but you can't take the the hills out of the hillbilly.

I watched the last half of a pro league lacrosse game on ESPN of all places on the weekend. It was the first time I'd ever seen the sport played, and I found it pretty enjoyable (was Boston vs somebody). Sorta like a mix between ice hockey and soccer - sockey, as I'd like to call it.

Would certainly rather watch lacrosse than baseball, anyhow.

What's with the name though, French?

The 1st half is certainly correct. SU outplayed Hopkins the whole game and Hopkins could neevr get any sort of offense out of anyone not named Rabil.

It's going to take a long time before the final four isn't some mix of the "same elite", it's just the way it is with lacrosse still being regional. The same high schools produce the talent in the same area of certain states and they all want to go to the same schools.

Nice to hear my HS alma mater get some love during the game :)