Closing in on Memorial Day...Lacrosse Finals

[wlu_lax6]

Memorial Day weekend means NCAA Lacrosse Championships. If you did not watch the games in Indianapolis yesterday you missed some great ones.

Duke beat Notre Dame in a one goal thriller and Denver game from way way behind to win over UNC.
On Saturday at College Park Syracuse went up 4-0 and then down 6-4 against Yale but pulled away at the end to send the Orange to the final four. Cornell kicked the brains in of Ohio State in the other quarter final.

In the D3 finals, Stevenson (near BFJ's house...they play at the old Colts/CFL Colts/Stallions/Raven's training center) beat Salisbury and will face RIT (who upset Cortland). RIT's Overtime game winning trick play below.

[howard]

What is RIT, Rensselaer? Oh Rochester.

(If you are the first to explain why I bothered to type out the above, 10 swamp bucks. HDO is ineligible. And if you appreciate how far I went for so little, you understand how sick a man I am.)

[Shirley]

Very impressive comeback by Duke in the championship game. Down 5-0 to perennial power Syracuse, Duke started dominating faceoffs and stormed back to win 16-10. At one point, Duke won 13 consecutive faceoffs - that just doesn't happen.

The faceoff guy won MVP despite not scoring a goal. He's a linebacker on the football team and wasn't even recruited for lacrosse.

BTW, I loved this pic. There are three separate fouls on the Duke attackman here - a crosscheck, from behind, and to the head.

[wlu_lax6]

Winning something like 16 straight faceoffs is just impressive. Turned the game into a make it/take it for Duke. Biggest question from the weekend was why Denver kept the platoon goalie system. The keeper in the first half was doing a great job.

As for the foul. only 1 foul.
Cross Check.

There is no "to the head foul" You just escalate the personal foul because of that. Still a cross check, you just have him serve full time for 1, 2, or 3 minutes because of it. Similarly a cross check to the back is not a push from behind. It is just a cross-check. Also without seeing this play you can't tell if it is from behind. I think the damn turned his shoulders to avoid contact and as a result would not be a foul (it is not a push from behind if the player turns and as a result what would have been from the front turns into a push).

However, this foul was actually none of the above. I think this was just a hold. A cross check requires you push into the player. I think this was the long stick driving into the attackman on the clear. His hands slide up the player

[Shirley]

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting three separate calls, just three ways what he was doing was illegal. I didn't see the play live (I have it recorded), so I'm just going off the pic.

[wlu_lax6]

I think this is a step or two later (but am not entirely sure)

[wlu_lax6]

Also, if you have not seen the freshmen Jones from Duke...he is the reason that my boy will never play D1 lacrosse. The game is changing and having 5'6 parents is going to hurt his chances. Jones is a TANK. Does not have the skill of lots of other guys on the field but is a BEAST (6'4" 240lb from Huntington, NY) and as a result runs 2nd midfield. He did a PG year at some prep school but was a d1 basektball recruit.

When Evan Royster (RB Redskins/Penn State) graduated high school he was an All American lacrosse player and would have been very similar had he decided to play lacrosse (was recruited by JHU and others).

[Shirley]

Yeah, I saw him score Duke's third goal and noticed he was a lot taller than the guys around him.