Goalies – A mist the ghastly atrocity of a lacrosse game between Ohio and Rochester, two individuals stood out. Both John Galloway and Brian Phipps earned a star this weekend with their spectacular play in net for their squads. Galloway had breath taking one on one saves to assure his teams victory. Although the Machine fell to the Rattlers, Phipps kept his team in the contest with some of his own anomalous stops. Without these two in cage, the outcome could have been a lot different.
Hamilton Nationals – Some critics, including myself, doubted the Nationals at the beginning of the season. After their 2012 season, with the missing leaders behind Joe Walters, Cody Jamieson, Jeremy Thompson and the like playing in the NLL playoffs. 2013 has proven different. Even without some of their star players contending in the NLL at the start of this season, Hamilton has come out fighting with a 5-0 start. Most recently, they defeated the 2012 MLL Champions, Chesapeake Bayhawks, in overtime thanks to Jordan Hall’s second goal of the game. My third star goes out to the entire Nationals organization who have overcome adversity and deemed themselves as a top tier team in the MLL once again, firing on all cylinders.
Release the Hounds – It was an all out team effort in their game on Friday night versus the New York Lizards. Down 10-7 at half, Eric Lusby and Ryan Young went back to back to bring their team within one, but Charotte found themselves d 12-9 at the end of the third. Matt Sawyer brought the Hounds back within one followed by Matt Danowski goal to tie the game at twelve. Lusby tallied his third of the night, giving Coach ‘s lineup their first lead of the game. Danowski put the nail in the coffin to make it 14-12 in favor of the visiting team. After the Lizards’ Matt Gibson scored to give NY their twelfth point of the game in the third, Charlotte’s defense stood tall and kept the home squad from tallying anymore goals for a total of 18:15. This was Charlotte’s first win over New York since being inducted into the MLL, and it was a nice one too as they came from behind, receiving this weekends third star.
“Rookie Star” goes to Rob Pannell of the New York Lizards for a stellar first MLL career game, recording three goals and one assist.
