Dick’s Sporting Goods Park held the USA vs. Canada exhibition match on Saturday, September 8. Richie Meade was at the head coaching position for the USA and Randy Mearns had the helm for the Canadian side. Canada took home the win, 11-9, over the United States.
Rules for international play are different than those of the MLL and NLL. There are no timelines, no counts, no horns and substitutions are on the fly. In international play, the United States has the overall lead 15-4. Canada has won the last 3 of the 4 meetings. The one win the US has over Canada in those four meetings was in the 2010 FIL Championship Gold medal game held in England.
There were 24 colleges represented in the game. The top two were Johns Hopkins University, who had all seven players participate in the action for the United States. The other was the University of Denver with five players, all on the Canadian team. Canada used a fair amount of young players, seven to be exact, who will still be playing college this coming season. They are Chad Tutton (UNC ’15), Jordan Houtby (Detroit ’13), Reid Acton (Loyola ’13), Wesley Berg (Denver ’15), Cameron Flint (Denver ’13), Jeremy Noble (Denver ’14), and his brother Jason Noble (Cornell ’13).
One thing the Canadians are very good at is sticking to their dominant hand and stick skills in general. You will rarely see them go to their weak side and if you do, it’s most likely just to cradle. When they dodge, most American defenders expect them to go to weak hand, wrong, they will most likely stay in their strong hand and go to net.
They also like to play two on two lacrosse, making the other 8 players on the field useless. In that sense, telling the defense to slide and double team would be wrong again. Staying on your man is crucial, for when the defender decides to double team or slide, that’s when the Canadians will hurt you the most.
Off ball, they will backdoor their defender, get the ball by some magical behind the back or one handed pass and most of the time, score. Â Their passing is phenomenal and it amazes me how they can get the ball out of their stick and in the exact spot they want to throwing it one handed or behind the back.
Those amazing passes can’t happen without first getting control of the ball. The mixed aged Canadians out hustled the more athletic US team, winning the ground ball battle 32-29.
Big news coming out of Denver was the reappearance of Kyle Harrison on the International scene. He had a goal in the competition, with many shots. His dodging is still good from up top and he can still shoot. It’s the timing and placement of the shot Kyle will have to work on.
Midfield dodging overall for the US was well done. Steven Brooks had a lot of great looks, but has to get back into his groove. He can rocket a shot past a goaltender no problem, but if his placement is off, his shooting will be off. Paul Rabil should have been a little more selfish in the game. Paul can obviously shoot no problem and makes good decision with when to shoot. However, when he tries to be unselfish, he sometimes makes mistakes and coughs up the ball and sometimes he makes great decisions with the ball. Both were seen in the game. Max Seibald has to work the ball around against a tough defense like Canada’s. When he had the ball and tried to bull dodge his way through, the defense swarmed him. One thing that struck me as silly was not having Brooks and Dixon on the same midfield line. They played together all summer and know each other tendencies well. Maybe the US staff saw or know something I don’t. It would make sense, at least to me, to keep them together after playing together all summer.
The US offense went for a lot of one on one challenges. Sure the Canadian defense was on the younger side of the spectrum and maybe the US had a step or two on them, but they aren’t brainless. They play good one on one defense. Joe Walters and the rest of the attack should have realized that after Walters 20 second trial of trying to go to the net. Stanwick is young and is still learning the professional and international level of play, but still needs to take that extra step to glory. He obviously knows about it, and if he takes that step, the US gets within one. Maybe the offense’s struggles had to do with Americans being used to a shot clock style of game, because they were playing as if they only had 60 seconds to shoot.
Other little things added up as to why the US didn’t come out victorious. The US scores a second goal in the second quarter. Stephen Peyser’s unwarranted penalty in the second quarter. Matt Bocklet makes the fast break pass to Ned Crotty. Kyle Sweeney doesn’t drop the pass at the top of the box on a fast break and force coach Meade to take a time out. Ned Crotty doesn’t throw the ball away off that time out and tries for a quick draw and dump situation. Brooks makes the pass to Boyle in the third quarter after the first goal of the second half. Evans controls the GB behind the net and Jordan MacIntosh doesn’t grab it and score. Stanwick takes that extra step to glory and scores to being the US within one. Harrison makes that pass to Berger when he draws the slide. Westervelt finishes the ball on EMO. Bocklet doesn’t fall while shooting in the 4th. Rabil doesn’t throw the ball randomly in the middle of the box to a Canadian defender. Staying out of the penalty box when in need of the ball helps. Brooks makes that shot at the end of the fourth to give the US hope for a tie or the win.
All the little things add up in the end. That one thrown away ball. That one shot that goes just wide or goes straight into the goalies stick. They may be tiny fractions of the game, but think about it, if you’re missing a fraction of your starting players, you don’t feel whole as a team. Missing that one player could mean that extra ground ball that leads to a goal and the win. It’s like throwing a rock into a pond, no matter the size of the rock, it still makes ripples.
I didn’t touch on Canada’s mistakes because there’s really no need to when they came out victorious. Just to clarify why.
The Canadian defense pressured out a lot on the US offense, which the US did not take full advantage of. As mentioned earlier, we had an extra step on the Canadian defense, all the offense had to do was draw and dump. Rabil and Brooks performed it beautifully in the second half. If the midfielders and attackmen switched up their game to drive and dump priority, shoot second, the US comes out with the win. Stanwick and Boyle are feeders, let them feed. Crotty may be the only attackman on the team that could go one on one and be the most successful, with Walters following closely. Even Danowski can beat his guy form the wing, we saw that. His shot selection needs to be better, but rather than shoot, pass the ball. An assist is just as good as a goal.
Transition was very shaky for the United States. When going on defense, I believe that they needed to put pressure on Brodie Merrill. Yes, he is one of the best at transitioning in the sport of lacrosse and can handle the ball as good as anyone. However, most of the time he is looking to dump the ball. The US Should have locked off the easy outlet and played pressure defense on Merrill, making him tired and putting the submission on the Canadian transition game. Going on offense, Abbott and Bocklet were the obvious go to guys, but with the defense pressuring and playing them far out, it proved challenging to get settled on offense.
That’s where off ball movement needed to come into play. The Canadians are wizards at off ball lacrosse, where as the US is lead footed. It was almost as if the US was lazy in a sense. They showed life at the beginning of the second half when Boyle moved to the crease and scored, but that was the only real off ball movement that stood out, other than the draw and dump between Rabil and Brooks.
The defense on the US side left Adams and Schwartzman out to dry a few times. It was due to ball watching and sliding when they were not supposed to. As was the game plan that Coach Meade and staff put together from the start.
All in all, the United States has a lot of work to do on all three ends of the lacrosse field. Offense needs to work together more. Defense has to communicate, be awake and stick to the game plan. Lastly, transitioning, needs to be cleaned up, both ways. Two way middies may become more of a factor as the game of lacrosse changes. This was a good experience for both teams, as it gave them insight as to what the teams are good at and what they are weak at. Don’t be mistaken, 2014 is right around the corner and will be here before you know it.
Here are some questions that struck me as I was watching the game:
Was locking off John Grant Jr. the best way to go with man down for the United States?
Why not keep Brooks and Dixon on the same line?
Has Harrison been out of “big time†lacrosse too long?
Will Evan Kirk get signed by an MLL team?
Does international play adopt a shot clock to speed up the game?
Here is a link to which you can find full rosters of both teams: http://ow.ly/d/MDd You will have to download the PDF file in order to see them. The only change in the roster was USA’s Matt Dolente, who changed his number from 5 to 13.
Below is a list of the colleges that were represented and the players that attended them:
Denoted: United States (USA) & Canada (CAN)
Johns Hopkins:
USA: 7 (Rabil, Schwartzman, Harrison, Dolente, Evans, Peyser, Bocklet)
Duke:
USA: 2 (Danowski, Crotty)
Virginia:
USA: 2 (Stanwick, Dixon)
Maryland:
USA: 3 (Walters, Zink, Cinosky)
Syracuse:
USA: 2 (Brooks, Abbott)
Georgetown:
USA: 1 (Sweeney)
CAN: 1 (Merrill)
Hofstra:
USA: 1 (Polanco)
Colgate:
USA: 1 (Eck)
Penn State:
USA: 2 (Adams, Gurenlian)
Cornell:
USA: 1 (Seibald)
CAN: 1 (Jason Noble)
Ohio State:
USA: 1 (Bice)
UMBC:
USA: 1 (Westervelt)
Princeton:
USA: 2 (Striebel, Boyle)
Washington College:
USA: 1 (Berger)
Canisius:
CAN: 4 (Dineley, Vinc, Jones, Ross)
RIT:
CAN: 2 (MacIntosh, Kiekebelt)
Stony Brook:
CAN: 3 (Campbell, Crowley, McBride)
North Carolina:
CAN: 1 (Tutton)
Delaware:
CAN: 2 (Grant Jr, Dickson)
Denver:
CAN: (Matthews, Snider, Flint, Berg, Jeremy Noble)
Loyola:
CAN: 1 (Reid Acton)
Detroit:
CAN: 1 (Houtby)
Hobart:
CAN: 1 (Evan Kirk)
Robert Morris:
CAN: 1(Kiel Matisz)
