Ohio State traveled to Jacksonville to face the Dolphins in the second game of the Moe’s Southwest Grill Lacrosse Classic. The Buckeyes had just seen their BIG10 counterpart, Penn State, take down the might Pioneers from Denver. Needless to say, OSU couldn’t let the Nittany Lions take all the glory, bringing home a 9-6 victory over Jax.
Throughout the game, Jacksonville kept it competitive and held their own making the Buckeyes work for every goal and vice versa. Both teams’ goalies, Peter DeLuca (JU) and Greg Dutton (OSU), made nine saves to help keep the game interesting, coming up big multiple times. DeLuca was a big difference maker after the Dolphins were dominated by Duke a week before.
Coach Myers should be very proud of his team going 19-19 on clears. It’s a part of the game that can make or break a team during competitions. Not to forget that great heads-up play in the fourth by Jesse King, OSU midfielder, when he went right in front of the net but elected not to shoot to kill more time and drew a penalty. Has to be one of the most disciplined moves I’ve seen in a game, ever.
Unfortunately, there was a good amount of sloppy play by both teams on offense that the game itself became frustrating to watch and many face palms were had. Jacksonville has a lot to work on, including discipline, communication, fundamentals and taking care of the ball. Most of which goes for OSU as well, focusing precisely on fundamentals and taking care of the ball.
Dolphins Coach Guy Van Arsdale can’t b happy with the situations on both defense and offense. Defensively, just the penalties that were made were inarticulate and their communication was absent between picks and ball watching. Offensively, they forced the ball a little too much, passing to a guy on the crease that was smothered before the ball got there. The Dolphins need to work on replacing each other and become outlets when teammates are in trouble.
The Buckeyes were no expert on offense either, turning the ball over more times than I can remember just from bad passes (insert face palm). Fundamentals will be the word of the week for Ohio State when they get back to work this week. Myers said, “We come away from today knowing there’s a lot we have to get better at. It’s a W. As we move into this next week we’ll go home and study a lot of film and work on the fundamentals.”
Jacksonville had six different goal scorers in the game. TJ Kenary, Cmaeron Mann and Ari Waffle each had a goal and an assist. The other three goals came from David Goldman, Rob Wertz and Conor Igoe.
Dom Alexander, Logan Schuss, and Jesse King all had two goals, while Adam Trombley and David Planning recorded a goal and an assist. Dan Wertz scored one goal and Carter Brown picked up an assist.
It’s early in the season and figuring out the problems now is better than running into them later. OSU & JU are good teams with lots of potential.
