http://www.mercerbears.com/sports/2009/6/18/LaxUnderCon.aspx?tab=lacrosse&path=lacrosse
Mercer Univeristy in Georgia has added men’s lacrosse starting in 2011. With this addition, every state on the East Coast will have at least one DI men’s lacrosse program. So now in 2011, there will be 61 DI mens teams.
Legendary Princeton Coach Bill Tierney is leaving his titles in New Jersey to coach the University of Denver, a school with some potential, but nowhere near the prestige of Princeton. Its good for Denver, and probably good for lacrosse to put a coach of that caliber in an up and coming hotbed. Look to see Denver in the Final Four by 2013.
Syracuse won the DI National Championship in OT earlier today. Not that I had a horse in the race, but it was frustrating watching Cornell make so many mistakes in their clearing game. Especially the final one with 20 seconds left which led to the game tying goal by Kenny Nims. Which led to OT, which led to Cody Jamieson’s game-winning goal. Cornell did what they could. I thought ‘Cuse was the better team. If the game was 59 minutes long, Cornell would be the National Champions.
Boston is being invaded by New York lax, mostly from the Central area. Both Cornell and Syracuse won the DI semi-finals on Saturday over Duke from North Carolina and the University of Virginia. Le Moyne from Central NY plays Long Island school CW Post on Sunday in the DII championship. Cortland, another Central NY school plays Pennsylvania school Gettysburg in the DIII final on Sunday.
Good chance for a Central NY Sweep come Monday.
A lot of people, including myself thought Virginia would run over Cornell in their semi-final match today. Cornell was the team who did the running over on both offense and defense. Keeping UVA’s big time shooters to a minimum, I think Stanwick had a hat trick, and everyone else just had single goals. Cornell had some big time goals from Pannell, Hurley, and my favorite Big Red, Rocco Romero. Rematch with Syracuse on Monday. I give Syracuse the favorite, but I think Cornell can win and wouldn’t be surprised if they did.
Aside from keeping the game close in the first quarter at 2-2, Duke was out of this game pretty early. It wasn’t surprising to see Syracuse win at the end of the game. Kenny Nims, Pat Perritt, and Cody Jamison were ridonkulous for Syracuse. Duke just could not do anything offensively or keep Syracuse off the scoreboard.
Big Shot Brian Christopher was probably feeling pretty good after scoring the first goal in the game. However, Virginia came back with a barrage of six goals, and didn’t stop until the game was over. The Wahoos had six multiple goal scorers, and three players with five or more points. (Billings 4,3 Stanwick 2,5 S. Bratton 5,0) UVA won the game 19-8.
The final quarterfinal game between Duke and UNC was not as close as the 12-11 score indicated. I thought Duke controlled most of the game and only seemed to allow UNC to score. Although the Tar Heels did almost send the game into OT in the last few seconds. Someone tell me why Duke wasn’t trying to score in the last minute? They were only up by a goal, and I know that coaching logic dicates just running out the clock. But I have seen many Duke games where they don’t change their game plan for any reason. I think they would have lost the game because of Danowski’s sudden change of heart.
Next week….Duke vs. Syracuse and UVA vs. Cornell. I am going with a Duke vs. UVA final. Duke a first time champ???
I saw highlights of Saturday’s quarterfinals on two different SportsCenters. The early evening edition featured three plays from both games in the top plays. Two Cornell goals in their win over Princeton and Cavalieri’s awesome saves against Maryland.
The later edition of SportsCenter featured a clip of the Syracuse vs. Maryland game, specifically Brian Phipps getting hurt. They then showed various bizarre sports injuries like Bill Gramatica of the AZ Cardinals tearing his ACL in 2001 and Gus Ferotte of the Redskins spraining his neck after hitting it against a wall.
The Orange started of the day of quarterfinals with its back-up goalie Al Cavalieri in the cage. Halfway through the first quarter, Maryland also had its back-up goalie Jason Carter in the goal after a freak accident to starter Brian Phipps after jumping up and down after a play. Think Bill Gramatica of the Arizona Cardinals about five years ago. Syracuse took care of Maryland pretty easily 11-6, the Terps had no weapons. Cavalieri was ridiculous in the goal.
Cornell and Princeton played a low scoring game that had some good hits in the second half. Cornell won 6-4. Big Red goalie Jake Myers made some awesome saves.
Two games left tomorrow. Hoping they will be higher scoring!
MLL-Friday night was the opener for the contracted Major League Lacrosse in Annapolis as the Bayhawks took on the Toronto Nationals (aka Rochester Rattlers) and lost 17-16. Only about 3,000 fans were at the game, so most people must be going to the Preakness tomorrow before heading out to Annapolis to watch the college quarterfinals on Sunday. Merrick Thompson had seven goals for the Nationals, Jeff Zywicki and Joe Walters each had hat tricks. Six Bayhawks scored two goals.
NLL-The other pro league, the indoor National Lacrosse League held its championship in Calgary, it was the Roughnecks vs. New York Titans. Not sure how many players were conflicted in playing in either game. The home team won the Champions Cup 12-10. The Roughnecks had even scoring as three players had two goals. The Titans Casey Powell (a former Rattler/National for the MLL, but not playing this season) a scored four goals and two assists in the loss. 13,000 fans were at the game, but there is talk of movement around the NLL. After killing the Chicago Shamrox, the NLL is looking at new homes for the San Jose Stealth and Portland Lumberjax.
