Lacrosse

[MUC57]

Vandy74

Thanks for the kind words about the Mount Union team. I really respect your knowledge of the sport. You see things that even I wouldn't see although I have watched them play all season. You called it right when you talked about it being almost a "scrimmage" for the east coast teams. Damn, those teams are really good. Catholic sure did show Mount what it's about. But as you said, Mount only loses 1 player to graduation so, should be back next year. Thanks again. I will follow your posts with great interest.

I began posting here to learn a little more about lacrosse. It seems I got into a pi$$ing contest with PolarCat, who seems to be obsessed with how many points Mount scores. He has stated he has no respect for Mount and would like to see them lose 30-5 to Cortland. How about 21-8 to Catholic? I guess that makes him happy. Now we know what it feels like! I'm sure the entire Mount Union team will pout, sulk and recite numerous mea culpas over the way they have treated other teams.

So, I will keep an eye out for your posts. Maybe I'll pick up some pointers and learn more about this great game. Best to all your teams.

Once again, about Wisconsin-Whitewater..................?

[PolarCat]

I thought we'd beaten that topic to death, but maybe not.  Sorry you feel the need to take that tone, but clearly it's your prerogative.

Just so my words aren't further twisted:  I consider BLOWOUTS to be unsportsmanlike.  20-2 is a blowout.  21-8 is not.  From what I've heard, your team hung with Catholic for much of the game, for which I congratulate them.

[amh63]

Want to congratulate all the men and women LAX players that made the All-Academic lists.  Listing just came out.  Special "shout outs" to those that made both the all-academic list as well as the all conference list.  However, all student athletes in the conference deserve a pat on the back...in particular those graduates this year.  Me, I barely got through some courses if I tried any other activities.  I found it easier going full time at MIT graduate school than at Amherst.

[amh63]

PolarCat......see former HFC Caputti is going to Middlebury as OC.  Since his daughter is a Jr. On the Lax team there, ....is there a possibility that his other daughter will transfer to Middlebury and join her sister?  I know that this is a possible unfair question for you to inquire into...But...how about a probability of a family move guess.  The son at Bowdoin is graduating. 
Forgot where the youngest child is going in the Fall? 

[PolarCat]

Anything's possible, but...  The middle daughter is a 2 sport athlete for the Polar Bears (WBB and WLAX).  She grew up in Brunswick, has a ton of friends there, and I'd be surprised to see her transfer.  The youngest daughter is going to be a Colby Mule next year, also playing WLAX.

So my guess is they'll have 4 different family members at 3 different 'CAC's next year.  (Which in the end is probably more convenient than having one at Michigan, one at UCLA, one at Florida and one at Tennessee).  But in the end, that's just a guess.

[PolarCat]

If you haven't seen it, here's the YouTube video of the disallowed Gettysburg goal.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLU7nNJFpp4  My thoughts:

Gettysburg's #15 (Katie Landry) does an amazing job rolling the crease, then keeping her cool, collecting her own rebound and scoring what could have been the tying goal.  Great play for a first year, and I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot from / about her in the future.  Unfortunately, she throws her stick about 5 meters away from where she scored.

3 other sticks are on the ground: a defender's stick right where the goal was scored from (which may have been checked in the act of shooting), and 2 Bullet sticks.  Neither one of those was near where the shot was made ... but then again, neither was Katie Landry's.

Just watching the body language, the ref with the pony tail (the one who disallowed the goal) was acting like she had something to prove.  We have no idea what transpired prior to this play (maybe she'd cautioned the Bullet players or bench earlier and had gotten an earful), but she certainly isn't acting very cool and impartial in the clip.

To my way of thinking, it appears Katie was fouled by 2 separate York defenders as she was shooting, BUT she also could have been called for dangerous propelling.

So I think this particular play could have had several different outcomes.  In the end, Gettysburg should not have allowed York to control the game and put them in this position.  PolarKitten will be seeing Katie this weekend (a mini reunion of some buddies from their club team) so I may have more insights later.

[Vandy74]

PolarCat,

I'll be interested to hear what your daughter has to say after her reunion with the players including Katie Landry.  After watching this almost a dozen times looking for reasons for there to have been a problem other than what I speculated concerning the three rules mentioned previously I still believe I was right.  Any player other than the scorer dropping her stick after a goal must be a rules violation.  The Gettysburg site has an article about the game and states that the officials were unable to determine which stick to check.  That's rather unlikely since there were only four on the ground.  A fifth stick was also dropped later for a brief period.   One was obviously that of the York player who could easily have been called for a shooting space violation OR ruled having been fouled by Landry in the act of scoring.  Both rulings seem plausible.  Neither appear obvious.  But she was CLOCKED!  I can't believe there was no call either way and both would have nullified the goal.  The shooting space violation would have awarded Landry a free position shot.  Ironic that a rare instance of the refs just "letting them play" should result in a stick violation afterward.  Landry threw her stick about five yards ahead of her after she scored.  None of the other sticks were close enough to cause confusion.  Since at least one of the three (or was it four) officials must have kept her/his eye on Landry for the mere split second after her goal to see her toss her stick the idea that none of them could ID which was hers is ludicrous.  The rule has to be that only the scorer can drop it.  The story on the Laxpower Magazine site states that the goal nullification was brought about because of "multiple sticks" being dropped.  Period.  Nothing is said about confused officials.  It's a ridiculous sounding rule but it must be one.    It would seem that players should know the rule but when you think about it only a last second goal to tie or win a game would result in such a euphoric momentary mental lapse.  It doesn't happen that often.  These are 20 year old student athletes.  As students, they're still learning.

As for the ref with something to prove I believe you are being a bit harsh.  She was the one who immediately knew a stick violation had occurred and while she was trying to alert everyone to that fact the players were picking up their sticks.  #2 Abby Baigelman picked up hers. (If the problem was confusion as to which stick to check that should have helped solve it.)  In fact, #3 Maggie Connolly had dropped her stick after the others, hugged Landry and gone back and picked it up.  As she did she was confronted by the ref who had still not been able to get everyone's attention.  What she said was for the players to freeze as they do whenever the officials stop the clock and every time the whistle blows during the final two minutes of a half.  At that point, btw, the only stick on the ground that the camera showed was Landry's and she was standing right by it.  Again, THE stick in question never seems to have been the issue. 

Just to clarify one comment, I never saw the fourth official on the field during play and when the game resumed for the final six seconds she was standing on the sideline as an observer.  She along with the head official, not the one who made the call, was involved in the conversations with the coaches.  I assume she is the NCAA rep that one of the critiquing members of the peanut gallery hoped was present.

Lousy rule, lousy way for a game to end.

[Vandy74]

Magicman,

The week sort of got away from me here.  I know that ordinarily you would be rooting for Cortland tomorrow but I seem to recall your gracious admittance of wanting to see Coach Missy Foote go out on top in her final season.  Cortland has been banging on the door for a long time.  If you root for Middlebury I will appreciate it.  If you find yourself cheering on the Red Dragons, understood my friend.  Should the SUNYAC representative prevail tomorrow I admit I will probably root for them on Sunday regardless of who they're up against. 

[Vandy74]

It seems nobody has posted on the tennis board in quite a while.  Amh63 uses this one for other less followed sports so I guess I will too.  Congratulations to HC Bob Hanson and Middlebury on making it to the national championship finals on Wednesday albeit to lose to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 5-0.  In the individual competition still going on Middlebury's doubles team of Peter Heidrich and Palmer Campbell advanced to tomorrow's semifinal match against the same duo from C-M-S, Warren Wood and Joe Dorn, who defeated them in the team event.  Time for a little payback.

[Vandy74]

Congratulations to Cortland State, winners of today's NCAA semifinal game over Middlebury by the score of 19-12.  Middlebury put on a clinic for the first twelve minutes virtually maintaining control of the ball the entire time.  Draw control, the most important stat in the game.  You can have all the firepower in the world but you can't score without the ball.  From that point on, except for a brief Panther run in the second half it was all Red Dragons doing what Middlebury had done to start the game and more.  Congrats again to the winners and best of luck tomorrow afternoon.

[PolarCat]

Hats off to Trinity.  They faced a really physical F&M team (so physical I was waiting for the red cards to start appearing), but played their own game.  Coach Dissinger's strategy for Martha Griffin was nothing swhort of brilliant.  and unlike their opponents tomorrow, they displayed tons of class by passing the ball around at the end, instead of shooting on an open net,  Well done.

[magicman]

I got your PM Vandy and I must confess I was so busy in my store yesterday that I never even got a chance to look at the game between Cortland and Middlebury. In fact it completely slipped my mind until I got the email telling me I had a PM from you, and when I read it I wondered how in the world after following the lacrosse teams all season I could forget about these games. Sorry to see Missy's final season come to an end. I was surprised to read that the Panthers opened with a 4-0 lead but failed to hold onto it. Have to give the Red Dragons credit for fighting back and going ahead by halftime. Now of course I will be able to devote my full attention to the ladies from Cortland and hope that they do indeed bring home the Walnut and Bronze.

Not only did I miss the lacrosse games but the Cortland Men's Baseball team has gone 2-0 in the College World Series and are the only undefeated team in their pool. I completely missed those 2 games as well. I have just had too many things going on the past week.

The men now have 2 chances to advance to the title series and are supposed to play today at 5:15 against the winner of the Frostburg State/Ramapo elimination game. Should Cortland lose that game later today they will play the same team tomorrow for the pool title and the right to face the other pool winner (probably Wisconsin-La Crosse) in the Championship Series.

So I could be doing some switching back and forth today as the Women's Lax Final starts at 4:30 and the baseball game goes off at 5:15. A double Red Dragon win will probably be too much to ask for but I can wish it.    

[magicman]

Cortland leads Trinity 8-2 at the half. Cortland scored 2 goals inside of the first 3 minutes before the Bantams scored with 8 minutes gone by. It stayed that way until Cortland scored again with 13 minutes left in the half. The Red Dragons tacked on 2 more goals over the next 4 minutes and then got another one with 6 minutes to go t make it 6-1. Trinity got their 2nd goal with 4:36 left but the half ended with Cortland putting 2 more markers on the scoreboard. The 7th goal came with only 16 seconds left in the half and to add insult to injury the Red Dragons scored again 12 seconds later with only 4 ticks left to play. Both last second goals were scored by Cortland's Marilyn Farrell. That had to be a huge lift for the Cortland team going into the break.  Trinity needs to score a few quick goals early on to get back into this game in the 2nd half.

[magicman]

Looks like the 2nd half of the Championship game was just more of the first half as Cortland outscored the Trinity Bantams 9-4 in the 2nd to win this game going away by a 17-6 final score. Congratulations to the Red Dragons who finally get the Big Doorstop after knocking on the door for a number of years.   

[PolarCat]

Congratulations to Cortland.  They whipped Trinity on fundamentals: dominating the draw controls, incredible rides, and maybe the best GK play I've seen yet in D3.  And Oberle was truly spectacular.  Trinity just didn't have their usual mojo today, but even if they'd played up to their normal standards, I don't think it would have mattered.

Happy to see Cortland win their first National Championship (though it might have been classier to congratulate the Bantams before donning those ball caps and T shirts  ).  A fitting end to a great season, and an incredible tournament.