The Post-Week Tailgate: February 19, 2023

You think these early-season games don’t mean anything? How about the pure joy from Army coach Joe Alberici after the Black Knights upset the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers 14-13 on Saturday?

 

 

 

 

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That was the biggest upset of the weekend, which happened to be the Ivy League’s start to the season. The Ivy favorites — Cornell, Princeton, Yale and Penn — all started strong. Cornell beat state rival Albany 12-10, Princeton dominated Monmouth 22-9, Yale erupted against Villanova for a 20-14 victory and Penn passed a big early test by beating Georgetown 9-7 in a Top 10 showdown.

Random Observations

Smaller is sometimes better. Really cool to see a packed house at the new Ohio State Lacrosse Stadium for its game against North Carolina on Sunday. Playing in “The Shoe” has its appeal, but an intimate venue with the crowd right on top of everything seems to be a way better environment than a sea of empty concrete. The Buckeyes listed the official attendance as 2,363 for the game and they delivered for the home fans, rallying for an 8-5 victory.

“You can’t live with an outcome where Brennan O’Neill beats his man and scores unassisted.” Great call from Quint Kessenich with Denver leading Duke with about a minute to go. O’Neill didn’t necessarily beat his man, but used a question mark dodge to get his hands free and scored the game-tying goal, unassisted.

After a Denver slash on the ensuing faceoff, Duke opened overtime man-up. Crisp ball movement and a stepdown lefty bomb from O’Neill gave the Blue Devils the 14-13 win, capping a seven-point day for the Duke junior who is continuing to meet the ridiculously high expectations thrust upon him.

OF COURSE IT WAS BRENNAN.

Brennan O’Neill is a dominant force.

He just sent @DukeMLAX home with a thrilling win. pic.twitter.com/aK4MIKcOvS

— USA Lacrosse Magazine (@USALacrosseMag) February 17, 2023

Speaking of high expectations, our Kenny DeJohn caught up with Syracuse freshman Joey Spallina last week about the attention thrown on him after his collegiate debut

Is there any chance Loyola stops wearing the chrome green helmets? Games against state rivals Maryland and Johns Hopkins to open the season were a tall task. Even in his most optimistic dreams there’s no chance Loyola coach Charley Toomey thought the first two weeks could have gone this well. A 12-7 win over reigning NCAA champion Maryland and now a 13-8 win over Hopkins.

MAACtion. Okay, it’s a different MAC that has coined that term, but the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference picked up huge wins from Manhattan and Quinnipiac on Saturday, both fueled by dominant goaltending.

Manhattan blanked unbeaten Navy for the final 26 minutes of the game to come back for a 6-5 win behind 22 saves from graduate student Joseph Persico. Persico, who started his career at Utah, had not gotten any game action in his first four years of college lacrosse before leading the Jaspers to a 2-0 start this year. He’s made 36 saves while allowing 10 goals for an absurd 78.3 save percentage.

Quinnipiac, which won two games in all of 2022, has already equaled that total with win No. 2 coming in an 11-9 upset of No. 13 Brown. Quinnipiac goalie Nick DiMuccio made 21 saves in the victory, 16 of them coming in the first half as Brown outshot the Bobcats 35-13. In the second half, Quinnipiac limited Brown to just 13 shots.

Virginia scored 25 goals against Harvard, but hardly enjoyed it. For the second straight week, Virginia put on a first-half shooting clinic – this time netting 20 goals on just 33 shots. Amazing. But even in that first half the Cavaliers looked sloppy in other facets of the game, which manifested itself in the second half.

The Cavaliers were never truly threatened, but finished the game with five failed clears – part of 18 turnovers overall – and were flagged for nine penalties. Harvard scored nine of the last 10 goals to make the final score 25-21. The top-ranked Cavaliers, who have allowed 34 goals in their first two games, have a lot to clean up.

By the Numbers

126 • Number of pipes hit by Denver since 2019 versus 61 for its opponents in that time span, heading into the Duke game. Killer stat from Denver’s SID Niko Blankenship. Lacrosse can be a game of inches.

876 • Career wins between John Danowski and Bill Tierney after Danowski’s Duke squad edged Tierney’s Denver team in overtime on Friday. They are the winningest coaches in NCAA Division I men’s history.

600 • Career wins for Salisbury’s Jim Berkman after the Gulls beat Scranton 25-10. Berkman has picked up 591 of his wins at Salisbury, where he has won 12 NCAA Division III championships, after getting his first nine wins at Potsdam. He is the winningest coach, men’s or women’s, in NCAA lacrosse history.

9 • Career-high goals for Yale sophomore attackman Chris Lyons in the Bulldogs 20-14 season-opening win at Villanova. Lyons had 36 goals in just 13 games as a freshman last year.

10 • Saves for Michigan freshman goalie Hunter Taylor after coming off the bench in the second quarter in his collegiate debut, helping the Wolverines edge Hofstra 11-10. Taylor made two of his saves in the final two minutes of the game.

59.2 • Virginia’s first-half shooting percentage through the first two weeks of the season. The Cavaliers had 29 goals on 49 shots in the opening half of wins over Michigan and Harvard. Connor Shellenberger, the ringleader of the UVa offense, had a career-best seven assists in the win over Harvard.

2 • Career goals for Maryland’s Dante Trader Jr. Playing in his first lacrosse season for the Terps after ranking second on the football team with 62 tackles in the fall, had a pair of goals in a 15-12 victory over Syracuse on Saturday. This one was downright unbelievable.

 

 

 

 

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1 • NCAA Division I wins for Lindenwood and Queens. Both schools are moving up from Division II this season. Lindenwood edged LIU 9-8 on Saturday and Queens beat Hampton 17-10 on Sunday.

3 • Number of NCAA Division I teams that entered the weekend 3-0. All three lost. Syracuse lost to Maryland, Navy lost to Manhattan and Merrimack got knocked off by Dartmouth 11-10. The Big Green scored four of the final five goals to come back for the win.

2 • Number of NCAA Division I teams now carrying 3-0 records. Delaware beat St. John’s to set up a big matchup at home with regional rival Villanova this Saturday. Ohio State’s win over North Carolina has the Buckeyes at 3-0 heading into a neutral site showdown with top-ranked Virginia on Saturday in Naples, Fla.

29 • Combined points by the Kavanagh brothers of Notre Dame after just two games. Chris has nine goals and six assists and Pat has two goals and 12 assists for the Irish after wins over Marquette and Cleveland State.