Alex Urquhart
This year’s Fall Ball has seemed to fly by, but maybe that’s because of the outstanding games that took place. Along with these amazing games the Lacrosse community had a little bit of a heartache when it was announced that Cornell would participate in any scrimmages this fall, due to a hazing incident. Fortunately for the Lacrosse community was saved by the Orangemen of Syracuse, who took Cornell’s place playing against Israel and the Iroquois National teams.
Overall the best two teams it seemed this fall were both in the Final Four last spring, the University of Denver and the Syracuse Orangemen. Both had some interesting scrimmages this fall, Denver played the Denver Outlaws from the MLL and Syracuse slid into a game against the Iroquois Nationals. The Pioneers won their game against the MLL’s regular season champs and looked extremely impressive in doing so. Junior Sean Cannizzaro had two goals in the 10-5 win. The Pioneers also got a game against team Canada where they look a little slower than normal but played an impressive team from Canada. Syracuse got into their game against the Iroquois after Cornell was put on suspension by the school. Both teams were rolling through their lineups. The Iroquois trying to find their FIL preliminary team and the Orangemen trying to locate some role players in their squad. Really for the teams it’s unrealistic to take too much from this game but a number of the Orangemen looked mighty impressive against some of the best lacrosse players in the world. Players like Dylan Maltz, Freshman younger brother of Derek Maltz, and Hayes McGinely, also a Freshman, played huge time and looked extremely impressive.
The next top team would most likely be Notre Dame. After being ousted from the National Tournament last year the Fighting Irish have spent the offseason retooling and embracing their old philosophy of grinding midfielders and playing some of the best defense in the country. The Irish went out to Colorado Springs earlier in the fall to take on Air Force and it ended up being a good day all around for both teams. Air Force, who can be categorized as a rebuilding program, played extremely well against one of the best Irish teams to come out of South Bend in the last couple of years. Notre Dame also benefited from the game due to the fact that the will be travelling quite a bit come the spring.
All in all it was probably one of the best falls that I have seen in 10 plus years of watching Division 1 Fall Ball.
