Lacrosse

Started by drisclaw, July 03, 2011, 09:27:41 PM

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amh63

PolarCat....thanks for your comments.  Yes, the Amherst men's team had a sort of melt -down of sorts. The St. Lawrence team played a more physical game in the second half...one player actually scored a goal after running over the Amherst defender!  I mentioned to my wife that even if Amherst had won, the team would not beat Tufts. The Tufts team took it to Ithaca and the announcers in Canton made it known to the crowd in the 4 th period.
Speaking of Tufts....the Tufts' baseball senior players had a separate graduation ceromony.

Spoke to my daughter wrt the Ithaca lost...she works in Ithaca and sometimes attends Cortland and Cornell sports events.  It struck us that Amherst Graduation weekend is " early" this year.  We remember Amherst graduations to fall on Memorial Day weekend. Oh well, it is what it is.

jumpshot

There are wide variances in the recruiting/admissions/athletic/disciplinary policies among Division III schools and conferences, as each enterprise strives serve their own best interests, including in men and women's lacrosse.

For example, the Centennial Conference permits two-weeks of out-of-season formal team practices for all sports. One college in that conference also has an incoming first-year class of 17 male lacrosse players. That same school allowed a player who was cited for public drunkenness and destruction of private property to continue playing in the current NCAA tournament the same day it was reported in the local media, as well as in subsequent games.

The competition to attract and retain a declining applicant pool for small liberal arts institutions continues to escalate with more strategic shifts (as mentioned, eg. substitution of lacrosse, soccer, etc. for football) in the near future, as well as marginal expedient accommodations.

jknezek

#692
Quote from: jumpshot on May 20, 2016, 10:50:08 AM

The competition to attract and retain a declining applicant pool for small liberal arts institutions continues to escalate with more strategic shifts (as mentioned, eg. substitution of lacrosse, soccer, etc. for football) in the near future, as well as marginal expedient accommodations.

I don't see this happening at all. Schools are adding football because a decent football team brings 60-120 tuition paying men to a DIII campus. With declining men's enrollment, football could be a key driver in retaining gender ratios. With the improvement in turf fields, you can use the same facility for football, soccer, fh, lacrosse... The start up expense falls a lot if you aren't purpose building a facility.

Coaches and equipment and travel costs are expensive, but given the number of bodies you are talking about football can actually be a decent bang for the buck. Fewer coaches per player than most sports, even if more coaches overall, so long as you don't go coach crazy. Many DIII schools have 3 full time coaches and a couple assistants. For 80 bodies, that is cheap coach to player ratio compared to say basketball. The last DIII team to quit football was over 10 years ago (Swarthmore maybe?). Since then many schools have added and we continue to see stories of schools investigating.

We are also seeing the beginning of a slow rebirth in wrestling. The most common application of Title IX (I'm not opposed to Title IX, I just don't like what happened in reality to men's sports as opposed to what was intended to help women's sports) hurt men's sports for decades, but now that attracting men to campus is harder than attracting women, we are going to see more men's sports programs come back or flat out get added. That helps lacrosse, wrestling, and football. The top level DIIIs, with plenty of applicants and under 30% acceptance rates, have the money to pay for as many sports as they want mostly. The middle and lower level DIII schools, scrapping for applicants with 75%+ acceptance rates, need every option they can get for luring males to campus.

jumpshot

jknezek, I was referring to concussion issue regarding football, not financial attributes. See extensive earlier discussion on football portion of this website.

jknezek

Quote from: jumpshot on May 20, 2016, 12:06:38 PM
jknezek, I was referring to concussion issue regarding football, not financial attributes. See extensive earlier discussion on football portion of this website.

If you are referring to the discussion on the NESCAC boards, the NESCAC schools aren't particularly representative of the struggles facing DIII colleges and admittance rates. Regardless of the concussion issue, I think you'll keep seeing football being added at the broad DIII level. Bodies are needed on campus for many schools, especially the full tuition paying kind. The NESCAC, and the other top DIII educational schools, don't really participate in that reality.

jumpshot

Gettysburg College crushes the plague 12-4 today in the NCAA women's lacrosse tournament. Hard to beat Gettysburg in two activities:
lacrosse (lots of private school kids since comprehensive fee exceeds that of Princeton due to low endowment), and daily partying (think dominating social culture with limited academic enrichment).

Let's see how Panther Pride does tomorrow ....

Vandy74

Quote from: jumpshot on May 21, 2016, 04:34:42 PM
Gettysburg College crushes the plague 12-4 today in the NCAA women's lacrosse tournament. Hard to beat Gettysburg in two activities:
lacrosse (lots of private school kids since comprehensive fee exceeds that of Princeton due to low endowment), and daily partying (think dominating social culture with limited academic enrichment).

Let's see how Panther Pride does tomorrow ....

I attended both games.  Amherst looked lost out there today.  Gettysburg led 2-0 only two and a half minutes into the game.  Amherst seemed to settle down and tallied to make the score 2-1 at 22:28.  Seven minutes later the Bullets scored for the third time and from that point on the Purple and White were either outplayed or busy beating themselves.  It just wasn't their day. 

St. John Fisher scored first in the opening game and their third goal at 17:04 made it 4-3 Middlebury.  The Panthers then scored seven unanswered to take an 11-3 lead into the half.  While the outcome was never seriously in doubt the second half was mostly in favor of the visitors.  New GK Molly Maguire, who had been inserted following Middlebury's final goal of the first half at 1:26 continued to play well stopping 5 of 6 shots. 

Middlebury and Gettysburg know each other well having faced off nine times since 2004.  The Panthers have never played host however.  Tomorrow will be a first.  Middlebury owns a 7-2 advantage in the series, 5-1 in regular season play and 2-1 in NCAA tournament action.  That post season loss occurred the last time they played in the 2014 round of 16 when the Bullets shot down the Panthers 9-7.

amh63

Vandy74.....watched parts of both games at Middlebury and a bit of the Trinity win too.
My wife made a comment when she watched a little of the game...had it on the big screen.  She stated that Amherst looked like they did not know what to do.  Amherst did look lost on defense and very cautious on offense.  Made too many TOs and lost most of the draws.  Late in the second half, felt the HC should have put in the younger players as the starters just went thru the motions, imo.  Gettysburg was just bigger, stronger and played the game better.
Watched the Amherst's graduation today online......the seniors looked happy walking across the stage and looking out in the audience at family.

Good luck to the Panthers today!

jumpshot

Panther Pride rules as Middlebury women lacrosse team outguns the Gettysburg Bullets 13-9. Midd kept attacking with second half lead, had several excellent two-sport student-athletes competing (one outstanding in goal), and maybe benefited from having played back-to-back games in the same weekend five times this season versus the Bullets only twice.

Way to go Midd women lax ....!

amh63

#699
The Nescac did well today.  I leave the particulars of the Midd win to Vandy74...I'm sure he was there :).
It seems that the CAC will have both the Panthers and the Bantams in the Final 4...women's Lax.  The 2016 final 4 will be the same as in 2015 with unbeaten Cortland and F&M the other two.
On the men's side, Tufts beat St. Lawrence badly in Medford before a huge crowd.  It was 23-12 , I believe.  The winners over Amherst made a run in the 3rd but it was too little and way too late.  St. Lawrence scored 3 goals in each quarter, while Tufts scored 5 in the first and 4 in the fourth and the rest in between.  Tufts is defending their title...going for their 3rd straight Nat. Title!

jumpshot

Salisbury University dominates Gettysburg 14-6 in men's lacrosse to go to the championship game next weekend against a high-scoring Tufts team. Salisbury has a 46-19 advantage on ground balls and wins 19 0f 22 face-offs, a particular weakness all season for Gettysburg.

Gettysburg also defaults to individual selfish play with players fussing with each other on both offense and defense (which had been playing well recently).

The Tufts-Salisbury match-up could be a memorable one with whichever team having the last shot winning ....


Vandy74

Quote from: amh63 on May 22, 2016, 07:40:17 PM
The Nescac did well today.  I leave the particulars of the Midd win to Vandy74...I'm sure he was there :).
It seems that the CAC will have both the Panthers and the Bantams in the Final 4...women's Lax.  The 2016 final 4 will be the same as in 2015 with unbeaten Cortland and F&M the other two.
On the men's side, Tufts beat St. Lawrence badly in Medford before a huge crowd.  It was 23-12 , I believe.  The winners over Amherst made a run in the 3rd but it was too little and way too late.  St. Lawrence scored 3 goals in each quarter, while Tufts scored 5 in the first and 4 in the fourth and the rest in between.  Tufts is defending there title...going for there 3rd straight Nat. Title!

I admit I was somewhat concerned halfway through the first half when Middlebury trailed 4-2.  The Panthers often use the opening fifteen minutes finding their game before taking charge.  The six-goal run that followed shouldn't have surprised.  The 8-5 halftime lead quickly became 10-5 early in the second stanza.  With the Panthers up 11-6 Gettysburg produced a three goal run of their own on a free position goal and two scored while they played short-handed during a penalty.  But three was as close as they would manage with Middlebury controlling the ball for most of the final 5:15 following their final tally.

As jumpshot noted Middlebury has several two-sport players and they were the stars today.  Bridget Instrum (Field Hockey) led all scorers with 4 goals and an assist while Megan Griffin (Swimming) also tallied five points with 3 goals and 2 assists.  Katie Mandigo (Ice Hockey) put in another solid performance as GK with 8 saves on 17 shots.  Ironically, she is an offensive weapon on the rink, not a goalie.  Freshman midfielder Sara DiCenso, who has logged time in every game this season, also plays soccer.

Trinity faces Franklin & Marshall while the Panthers are up against Cortland State.  It's time we heard from magicman.  Actually it's time his true rooting interest Plattsburg gave him a women's lacrosse team to follow. ;)

A Middlebury vs Trinity championship game would be intriguing if both teams prevail on Saturday.

amh63

Nice post guys.  Vandy74...I tried to look for you at the Midd game.  Saw an older person helping out when the Panthers huddled during time outs.  Saw someone talking with a coach...did your sister in law watch the game and her former recruits, the seniors?  I'm sure you avoided paying ;D

Guess, I am going into a sort of CAC withdrawal for awhile...as schools "close" for the Summer.  Maybe try to watch a little lax this weekend.  UMass vs. UMD in Div1 is one game that caught my attention.  Will be up in Ithaca over the weekend.  It was actually warmer up North than here in the DC area this weekend.  Greetings to your Cuz! :)

Vandy74

Quote from: amh63 on May 23, 2016, 10:15:47 AM
Nice post guys.  Vandy74...I tried to look for you at the Midd game.  Saw an older person helping out when the Panthers huddled during time outs.  Saw someone talking with a coach...did your sister in law watch the game and her former recruits, the seniors?  I'm sure you avoided paying ;D

Guess, I am going into a sort of CAC withdrawal for awhile...as schools "close" for the Summer.  Maybe try to watch a little lax this weekend.  UMass vs. UMD in Div1 is one game that caught my attention.  Will be up in Ithaca over the weekend.  It was actually warmer up North than here in the DC area this weekend.  Greetings to your Cuz! :)

Missy's been loving every minute of it amh63, and yes, she was there.  She's enjoying retirement and I enjoy having my civilian status restored, even if it means I have to cough up the price of admission. :D  The Cuz was there as well and I'll give him your regards Wednesday night when we play Trivia at the local pub.

On a sports note I see that five's the charm for the Middlebury women's tennis team.  They won today's quarterfinal match against Amherst.  It's their first win over the Purple and White in NCAA tournament competition after four defeats.  They will face Emory (the other school I was accepted at) in tomorrow's semifinal action.  The Middlebury men's team also advanced to the semifinal round besting Washington (Mo.) and will match up against Chicago.

amh63

A closing note for Amherst Lax this year.   On Amherst social media section wrt to Commencement 2016, there was an Instagram photo of the women Lacrosse seniors.....standing at the War Memorial in their capes on, holding their class canes in the air and smoking their cigars!  Seems a new tradition is being set :).  Pic had over 200 likes.  Brave new world for the ladies....wife laughed and shook her head.  Players/grads smoking cigars....I associate with football. 8-)