BUILD UP Denver, the Lacrosse Capital of the West, is going nuts this week. As are we media personnel due to the movement in the last week. As Bill Tierney once told me in an interview, “The entire west region kind of looks to DU as their ‘home’ team.” Families are taking off weekend work, players asking for early birthday presents as tickets, and coaches preaching for their teams to…
Denver (14-2, 5-0 Big East), looking to advance to its fourth NCAA Tournament semifinal in the last five seasons on Saturday, will have to go through an Ohio State team that beat them 13-11 in Columbus in mid-March. This time around, Denver will be the home team, with the game set to take place at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. The Buckeyes (12-6, 3-2 Big Ten), are trying to…
We have a rematch this weekend of one of the best lacrosse games to ever take place that was last year’s Albany vs. Notre Dame playoff game. Now these to clubs meet at the same spot in 2015 looking to win and advance to the final four. Lyle Thompson leads Albany with 116 points. When Lyle teams up with freshman Connor Fields, who has 82 points, as a lefty attack…
By the end of the afternoon on Sunday, we should know the four teams moving on Championship Weekend in Philadelphia for the semifinals. Three of these four matchups will be rematches from earlier in the season, while Albany-Notre Dame will be a rematch from last year’s quarterfinals. These should end up to be four of the best games of the lacrosse season, as Albany, Denver, Johns Hopkins, and North Carolina…
Onondaga Community College has won their seventh straight national title and tenth as a program. This is a team that has produced the likes of Cody Jamieson Sid Smith and the older Thompson brothers as well as many more amazing players. This year the team was led by its defensemen, Tyson Bell and Oakley Thomas, as well as young offensive players Brine Rice and Matthew Bennett who received MVP honors after…
Hey ILWT readers! It’s another week, and there hasn’t been a need for an Ohio State lacrosse eulogy, so let’s continue with another week of talking about Buckeye lax. *Disclaimer: I won’t get into the nitty gritty of this week’s NCAA Quarterfinal matchup with Denver. I will do that in my preview coming Saturday. I’m just going to give you my simple thoughts after watching the OSU/Duke game from my…
This past weekend, the NCAA men’s lacrosse tournament field was trimmed from 16 down to eight. While the lacrosse community points to the teams still competing for a national championship, it’s also important to recognize the teams that were eliminated — the ones that didn’t even earn a shot to play for a final four berth and didn’t come close to the ultimate goal of a title. Even though their…
In a game between two of the most offensively productive teams in the NCAA, Brown flew out to Denver to be tested by the Pioneers. While the Pio’s punched their ticket to the NCAA Elite Eight, Brown was another victim of Denver’s prominence falling 15-9. Despite a six point goal differential, the game was very close statistically. Denver’s Trevor Baptiste won more face offs, but not by as many as…
The first weekend of the 2015 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament is in the books. A weekend of close games was exactly what you’d expect as parity in college lacrosse continues to increase. Entering Selection Sunday, the top four seeds in the NCAA Tournament were a pretty safe bet, and even Duke at #5 was almost a sure thing. The top four seeds took care of business (there were some close…
The game started out with shades of last year’s upset loss to Bryant, as the Red Foxes of Marist scored the game’s first goal to take an early lead. That would be their only lead of the night. Syracuse scored 10 unanswered there after to cruise to a 20-8 victory in a humid Carrier Dome. The Orange will play Johns Hopkins, a 19-7 victor over Virginia earlier in the day,…