Simmons: Quality Wins From Penn, Loyola

Posted By on March 3, 2014

Tewaaraton Trophy Watch List

Last week the Tewaaraton Foundation posted its list of the top 50 players in NCAA men’s lacrosse. While a very early release, the committee left off a few notable names. Although Virginia had four players included on the list, one player was conspicuously left off: James Pannell. One would think after awarding the Trophy to James’ brother Rob, the Foundation would remember the Pannell name. All in all a small mistake this early in the process but the younger Pannell is having quite a season already. On Saturday against Syracuse, the sophomore added another seven goals to his total, bringing his season cumulative to 22 goals and 26 points in six games. It is curious how the Foundation forgot one of the year’s top scorers but it is a safe bet he will be a finalist for the award.

Other notable names on the list include: Mark Cockerton (UVA), Nick Amato (Maryland), Lyle Thompson (Albany) Miles Thompson (Albany), Dylan Donahue (Syracuse), Matt Kavanagh (Notre Dame), Wells Stanwick (Johns Hopkins), Shane Sturgis (Penn State), Kieran McArdle (St. John’s) and Jordan Wolf (Duke)

ACC Play Hits Pause

ACC teams are currently feasting on one another but will get a brief respite for the next week or two in their midseason, non-conference matchups. Syracuse has been at the short end of the stick so far going 0-2 in conference. At the other end, Maryland has benefitted from big wins over the Orange and the Blue Devils. The talent level in the ACC surpasses pretty much all other conferences, but it will be nearly much impossible to get all six ACC teams into the national tournament. At this early juncture in the season, it appears the locks right now are: Maryland, UVA, and Duke. I see UNC and Notre Dame fighting for a possible fourth at large bid from the ACC. Syracuse will need to have an in-conference turnaround or else they are in serious danger of missing out on post-season play.

The Terps go on a three-game non-conference break against Stony Brook, Villanova and Michigan. Maryland should walk away from this stretch 3-0. SU will face former Big East foe St. John’s at the Cobb County Lacrosse Classic in Kennesaw, GA before they take on a strong Johns Hopkins team. Duke has Loyola and Marquette. The Loyola game will be a good test for the Blue Devils; the Greyhounds are playing as well as anyone in the country right now. UNC draws Princeton on the road and then Bucknell at home. UVA continues their tough stretch with a game against Cornell next weekend. Finally, Notre Dame will play Denver at home to try and go 3-1 on the season.

The Importance of F/O’s

In the Syracuse, Virginia game on Saturday night there was a lot of talk about face off performance and how it affects post-season achievement. Since 2005, seven teams have made it to the Championship Weekend who had a .500 f/o win percentage or worse, only one of those teams went on to win a national championship.

2013–Syracuse .420–runner up

2012–Notre Dame .500–final four

2011–Virginia .494—Champion

2008–Virginia .499–final four

2007–Duke .485–runner up

2006–Syracuse .479–final four

2005–Duke .479–runner up

(’04 Princeton f/o statistics are unavailable but it is known that they were at least below a .506 and lost in the final four to Navy)

The common thread between these teams is their high-powered offenses and statistically excellent man-up offenses and scoring defenses. These are all blue chip lacrosse programs, but even still, only one was able to go all the way. This year Syracuse, Denver, and Albany are the significant programs under that .501 mark. Syracuse has the offensive skill, but so far has proved unable to overcome their face off problems. I don’t expect that Albany and Denver will even make the tournament, although I think Albany does have a good offense. Virginia has been flirting with the .501 threshold (the only reason they are above it is because SU was horrific on faceoffs Saturday night), but is currently just above it. UVA however, is one of those teams that can overcome their shortcomings in the face off circle with their high-powered offense. If anyone doubts how important FOGOs are in the game of lacrosse, take a look at last year’s national championship game.

Quality Wins

Seven games this past week featured two ranked opponents. The most anticipated game included #1 Duke at #2 Maryland. Both goalies looked great, Niko Amato had 17 saves with Duke net minder Luke Aaron making 15 saves of his own. The Terps kept Duke scoreless for nearly 27 minutes at one point in the game, leading to a 10-6 Maryland win.

Another big matchup of the weekend starred Syracuse vs. Virginia. The Cavaliers walked away with a 17-12 win. Syracuse lost the game on clears, turnovers, face offs and shots. Although SU kept it close for most of the game UVA obviously had the upper hand throughout. The Orange continue to show their major weaknesses and are in serious trouble. UVA might not be the best team in the ACC but they showed off their juggernaut of an offensive unit.

No. 20 Penn kept themselves in contention by winning over #5 Denver prior to the start of Ivy League play. Penn did not lead until the fourth quarter when the Quakers went on a 4-1 run to overtake the Pioneers 12-10. Denver goalies Ryan LaPlante and Jamie Faus split time in net allowing six goals apiece, but Faus only made one save in the game.

With the exception of an early season, one goal loss to Virginia, Loyola continued to roll on Saturday, taking down Lehigh 14-7. The Greyhounds’ Kevin Ryan had a five-goal performance to help his team to a 14-7 victory. Loyola now has wins against Penn State, Towson, and Holy Cross in addition to Lehigh.

Notre Dame picked up its first ever ACC win in a close 11-10 game against a talented UNC team. Matt Kavanagh had three goals and two assists in the game, while starting goaltender Conor Kelly found himself being replaced after the first period by freshman Shane Doss. Doss is a legitimate option for the Irish and could get the next start. On the other side, Jimmy Bitter finished with three goals and an assist. Notre Dame dropped to #11 last week after a one-goal loss to Penn State, and got a much needed win in a ridiculous ACC league.

Ryan Brown led Hopkins to a 15-9 win over Princeton tallying five goals and three assists. Eric Schneider looked solid in net again with 15 saves. After being locked at four apiece the Blue Jays went on a 8-1 run to take advantage in the game. Hopkins has two gimme games against Mount St. Mary’s and UMBC before going on a brutal stretch against Syracuse, UVA, UNC, Albany and Maryland.

Penn State bested a reeling Ohio State team 11-8. OSU’s lone win this season has come against Marquette. Penn State started off down 2-1 but went on a 5-1 run in the second period with Shane Sturgis snagging four goals and an assist on the day. OSU’s Jesse King led the Buckeyes with four goals and two assists.

Top Ten

The top of the NCAA is good, but there is a sharp drop off after about the first 10 teams. My top ten this week would include:

  1. Maryland–Can’t dispute that they are the top dog in. Great goaltending with Niko Amato and a shutdown defense has limited their opponents to 20 goals in four games. Charlie Raffa has done a solid job at the face off X with a .578 win percentage. Of course the Terps definitively beat a good Duke team on Saturday, but they also have blowout wins over Syracuse, Mount St. Mary’s and UMBC.

  2. Virginia–The Cavaliers are 6-0, but I still have some questions about their midfield, especially defensively. It took a last second goal from Ryan Tucker for the Cavs to make it to OT against Loyola where they would eventually win. UVA also had more trouble than they should have against Richmond and Drexel. The starting attack of Cockerton, Pannell and Van Arsdale has been nothing short of deadly. Pannell and Cockerton are both vying for player of the year. Against Syracuse last weekend, the long poles were able to limit SU’s leading scorer, Dylan Donahue, to just two assists. In net, Virginia is playing freshman Matt Barrett. Barrett has done what he has needed to keep his team in every game.

  3. Duke–If the Blue Devils hadn’t been so offensively inept on Saturday against Maryland I probably would have put them in my #2 spot. After starting the season with Kyle Turri in net, Duke has switched to Luke Aaron. Aaron had 15 saves in the loss to Maryland, but the Blue Devils offense was simply inept.

  4. Loyola–The Greyhounds have played great recently. Their one loss came at the hands of UVA in the first game of the season in overtime. Since then Loyola has gone 4-0 with wins against Penn State, Towson, Holy Cross, and Lehigh. They have a huge matchup with Duke on Sunday.

  5. Penn State–Senior attack Shane Sturgis has led the Lions with 18 goals and 23 points. At the face off circle they have two good FOGO guys in Cole Yeager (.589) and Drake Kreinz (.682). They did lose to Loyola by one, but bounced back with a win against the Irish.

  6. Notre Dame–Notre Dame started the season ranked high but lost in Week 2 to Penn State. While the Irish did beat UNC, they did so by only one. Their next four games are important. They need to come out and convincingly show that they can handle the mediocre squads of Denver, OSU and Syracuse, but I do not expect them to beat UVA.

  7. Johns Hopkins—I’m not a big believer in the Blue Jays; their 4-0 record is inflated by a low strength of schedule. They have a one goal win over Ohio State. Other than that they have beaten Towson, Michigan and Princeton. Out of those four, Princeton is the best but is only mediocre this year. I need to see Hopkins play higher quality competition, which won’t happen until March 15 when they host Syracuse followed up with a trip to UVA.

  8. UMass–This week holds a big test for the Minutemen. On Saturday UMass travels to Albany where it will face a potent attack line. Albany is a dangerous team that came up just barely short against Syracuse and Drexel.

  9. UNC–I had trouble with UNC. I know their offensive numbers are hugely inflated by ripping on three sub-par teams before losing to Notre Dame by one. Again, it is hard to tell because of the low quality of competition, but so far the scoring has been spread across the team with 20 players scoring at least one goal. Against the Irish, Jimmy Bitter had three goals and an assist, while in net Kieren Burke snagged 10 saves and allowed 11 goals against. The question for me is whether UNC is better than SU.

  10. Syracuse–It might be a better strategy for SU to simply surrender the face offs and just get set on defense, that is how miserable the Syracuse FOGOs have been. They have big problems clearing and holding onto the ball. SU has trouble with groundballs and can’t seem to win the physical battles. The long poles gave up too much room to UVA snipers and didn’t contest enough of the shots. They remain in my top 10 for several reasons: 1) they beat Albany, 3) their offense has huge potential, 3) looking at their roster, I am not ready to accept that this team is so good on paper, and so bad in play, 4) I hate when teams split time between goalies and I think in the end it hurts them, stick with Dom Lamolinara and call it a day.

Next Week

The upcoming weekend features several intriguing matchups. The action kicks off on Friday with UNC travelling to Princeton. The game will be televised on ESPNU at 5:30 pm. Saturday will give us four big time games. After falling to Penn this past Saturday, Denver will meet Notre Dame in Southern California for the first ever Pacific Coast Shootout at noon. UVA will travel to upstate New York to play Cornell in another Saturday nooner. The Big Red face their first test of the season after getting off to a 3-1 start, while UVA looks to remain undefeated. Fairfield took a hit this past week, losing to Hofstra and will play Providence on Tuesday before gearing to host Yale on Saturday at 3 pm. The weekend finishes off with Duke hosting Loyola on Sunday at 6 pm which should be a great game. The Greyhounds are 4-1, the one loss coming at the hands of UVA who won by a goal. The game can be seen on CBSSN.