ISL Lacrosse 2020

[Laxxal22]

The STX D1 Rising showcase was a few weekends ago. Full write up of who impressed here: https://3drising.com/articles/recruitin ... -standouts

Two ISL guys got very thorough write ups that are pasted below. Definitely are both big time players.

Adam Figler, Attack/Midfield, Belmont Hill School (Mass.)/3d New England, 2022

Figler is a tough, determined offensive player who is a threat at any moment to break down his defender and get to the cage from various spots on the field. He’s got a smaller stature but is strong and plays with a ton of guts, especially on the ride, where he’s smart and never quits and, as a result, is good for a caused turnover or two in just about any game. Run out of the box, the right hander will cause problems for shortstick defenders who underestimate his abilities and try to overplay him. Adam has excellent balance and can dodge in tight and handle contact, which makes him really hard to defend from X or below GLE. He showed that at one point by letting his defender hang him up, then he simply got his stick up high, absorbed the checks and pushed top side until he peeled off and faded away with sidearm blast that beat the goalie off hip. He scored another goal shortly thereafter off a possession he earned with a pick on the ride, toying with his defender, rolling back and forth until he wound up topside on the crease and went low-to-low before a slide even got there. Another highlight play came when he dodged inside a longstick from up top, protected the stick through the trail check, drew a slide and popped a gorgeous pass inside to cutter for a nice goal. He made a heads-up feed from X after corralling a sloppy pass to find an open teammate in an unsettled scenario for another assist. He found a cutter directly across the defense on another play. He had another assist from X, popping it right over the cross bar to an attackman for a one timer. Figler’s best play on the ride came when he flew to the crease, intercepted a flip pass to the goalie and banged it in, frustrating for the other guys. Quick to see the opportunity, he flew up once to a groundball at the midline, took it in to an unsettled defense and pulled back to rifle a 5-hole tally. He pulled off a finalizer-like move at X and scored with ease on one of the top goalies, a high level play executed with confidence. Adam was without a doubt one of the premiere attackmen at the STX Rising DI Fall Showcase.

Quinn Isenstadt, Goalie, Groton School (Mass.)/3d New England, 2022

Quinn had a solid weekend at the STX Rising DI Fall Showcase. He’s a tough stopper who uses his body and made some impressive saves from close range. One of his best came when a midfielder walked right through the middle of the defense untouched, throwing numerous fakes, and Isenstadt met the low shot perfectly. He lined up a wild, high hard shot in the middle and seemed to never lose focus on the ball. Quinn was tough in taking some hard shots off the body. He plays with a little bit of an unconventional approach in the cage, and he is bold out of the cage and will get involved in the clear, even if he needs to handle it himself. After one save, he carried up the field, made contact and flung a behind the back pass to a defender on the move.

[Laxxal22]

Bunch of guys signed NLIs yesterday, congrats to all of them. There were also several guys who have announced verbals previously but did not make a signing day announcement. I know not everyone signs an NLI but they still end up at the schools to which they verbaled. In situations like that, what are the reasons for not signing an NLI?

[Laxxal22]

Interesting tweet here. Peyton O'Leary, a Govs middie and Umass commit received a preferred walk on offer as a WR for Michigan football. Pretty impressive with no summer camps or fall season - but the kid is a 6'4" three-sport star and Michigan has recruited the ISL pretty regularly for the past 6-7 years. His older brother (who was my favorite to win ISL POY if 2020 had been played) is a freshman with the Minutemen, so there's still some family pull there, but it looks like he's focused on pursuing football.

https://twitter.com/peytonoleary6/statu ... 4521562112

O'Leary heading to Michigan as a preferred walk. https://twitter.com/peytonoleary6/statu ... 4765275136

Congrats to him. Hope we see him for one last run this spring, but you can't knock the kid if he goes full time football prep to put himself in the best position possible at UM.

[Laxxal22]

Saw a tweet promoting the all-star game of the Fivestar Elite event on LSN last night, so I checked it out. Premise was they invited a bunch of highly-regarded sophomores to IMG for a weekend of "college-level intensity coaching" (in other words a sneak peak at the sophs for some D1 coaches and recruiting influencers), with an all-star game at the end.

Grayson McClements and Brodie Upton fromm Nobles and Ryan Williamson from St. Seb's participated made the all-star game. The Nobles guys had a goal each, and Williamson looked like the top keeper of the four who played.

Julian Targete, formerly of Belmont Hill and now at IMG, was named MVP. Had a beauty first goal of the game, a few end-to-end clears, and always drew the lsm when he was on the field. Already very good with a ridiculously high ceiling, BH's loss is everyone's else's gain for the next three years.

[Laxxal22]

Will Quirk (@MuhneyWizzel) the future Ty Xanders of Massachusetts and New England lacrosse, tweeted out his top 50 players in the ISL.

1.Ronan Doherty ’21 (Groton, Notre Dame) D
2.Grant Litchfield ’21 (Belmont Hill, Lehigh) D
3. George Fulton ’21 (Middlesex, Virginia) D
4.Jimmy Freehill ’21 (St. Sebs, Denver) D
5.Chad Palumbo ’22 (Nobles, Princeton) A
6.Aidan Maguire ’22 (St. Sebs, Duke) M
7.Jack Pappendick ’22 (BB&N, Duke) M
8.Thomas Porell ’22 (BB&N, ND) M
9.Aidan O’Neil ’22 (Tabor, Utah) A
10.Bobby O’Grady ’21 (Roxbury Latin, Marquette) A
11.Jack Rideout ’22 (St. Sebs, Michigan) F/O
12.Oran Gelinas ’22 (Middlesex, OSU) G
13.Max Ewald ’21 (BB&N, Harvard as a 22) D
14.Bryan Anderson ’21 (RL, Brown) LSM
15.Cole Van Meter ’21 (Nobles, BU) M
16.Trey Brown ’21 (Bel Hill, BU) D
17.PJ Mckeigue ’22 (St. Sebs, Penn) D
18.Greg Dennison ’21 (Rivers, Providence) D
19.Sean Henderson ’21 (LA, Hofstra) G
20.Gavin Begonia ’22 (LA, OSU) A
21.Zach Travaglini ’21 (Bel Hill, BU) A
22.Tommy Armstrong ’21 (St. Sebs, Bucknell) A
23.Anthony Romano ’21 (Groton, Richmond) D
24.Charlie Cave ’22 (Bel Hill, Brown) M
25.Blake Weldon ’21 (Govs, Umass) A
26.Russel Thorndike ’21 (Groton, Middlebury) A
27.Will Hoyt ’21 (Tabor, Colgate) M
28.Mike Marinello ’21 (Belmont Hill, SLU) G
29.CJ Monturio ’21 (Thayer, Army) M
30.Aidan O’Connor ’21 (Govs, Utah) M
31.Quinn McConnaughey ’21 (Thayer, PC) FO
32.Jake McCloy ‘21 (Thayer, Gettysburg) A
33.Nick Bell ’22 (Rivers) A
34.Will McCarthy ’21 (Middlesex, Middlebury) A
35.Theo Kostakos ‘21 (Thayer, Jacksonville) A
36.David Jacobs ’21 (Nobles, Princeton Hockey) A
37.Johnny Cowdrick ’21 (Middlesex, Trinity) D
38.Tate Seeman ’21 (Nobles, Air Force as a 22) D
39. Gunnar Von Hollander ’21 (Tabor, Connecticut College) A
40. Jack Taylor ’22 (Lawrence Academy, Jacksonville) M
41.Charlie Rainer ’21 (Govs, Colorado College) A
42. Tom Goguen ’22 (Bel Hill) D
43. Finn McCain ’21 (Tabor, Trinity) M
44. Quinn Isenstadt ’22 (Groton) G
45. Declan Murphy ’22 (Roxbury Latin) M
45. Nico Berger ’22 (BB&N) M
47.Travis Foster ‘22 (Lawrence Academy) F/O
48.Ben Baroni ’22 (Govs) LSM
49.Stephen Gaskill III ’21 (Nobles, BU) M
50.Ian Olenik ’22 (Govs, Providence) LSM

Great job by Will. I don’t want to take away from anyone so I won’t say the players that maybe got ranked too high, but the two Govs Lsms, Cowdrick from Middlesex, Jacobs from Nobles, McConnaughey from Thayer, Thorndike from Groton, and Weldon from Govs were the most under ranked imo.

Here are 10 guys (I included 11 in case O’Leary takes the spring to focus on football.) who maybe should’ve made and certainly could emerge as top 50 players this spring.

Adam Figler ‘22 (Belmont Hill) A
Peyton O’Leary ‘21 (Govs, Michigan football) M
Shane Dennin ‘21 (Groton) A
Joey Kraft ‘21 (Rivers, Tufts) A
Sam Raye-Steiner ‘22 (Middlesex) A
Rex Mabbs ‘22 (Middlesex) M
Brian Gonsalvez ‘21 (Rivers, Skidmore) M
Peter Frates ‘21 (Roxbury Latin, Williams hockey) LSM
Jackson Coutu ‘21 (St. Mark’s, Providence) M
Seamus McCarthy ‘21 (Tabor) D
Tim McNamara ‘22 (Tabor, Denver) G

[Laxxal22]

John Piatelli (St. Seb's, 2017) named one of Cornell's captains for 2021. It's still kind of rare for ISL guys to be impact players on the offensive side of the ball for top 10 caliber D1 programs, so it's been nice to see Piatelli be a contributor for the Big Red since day one. I hope he's been able to tweak his course of study so that he can return to Ithaca for a fifth year, but if not he should have a lot of opportunities as a grad transfer if he's interested.

https://twitter.com/CornellLacrosse/sta ... 9851376640

[Unknown Participant]

John Piatelli (St. Seb's, 2017) named one of Cornell's captains for 2021. It's still kind of rare for ISL guys to be impact players on the offensive side of the ball for top 10 caliber D1 programs, so it's been nice to see Piatelli be a contributor for the Big Red since day one. I hope he's been able to tweak his course of study so that he can return to Ithaca for a fifth year, but if not he should have a lot of opportunities as a grad transfer if he's interested.

https://twitter.com/CornellLacrosse/sta ... 9851376640

His dad was szit back in the day. Hated covering that guy.

[Sidelinehorn!]

Any idea how this year is going to go down? Is it possible to have the day schools play a schedule with other day schools in the area? Seems like the Lakes Region is going to be a go...will they be playing out of conference games? Andover, Dexter and Pingree?

[Laxxal22]

I haven't heard anything.

A schedule where the day/predominantly day schools (Thayer, Nobles, Seb's, RL, Rivers, BB&N, Belmont Hill) all play each other twice would be a rock fight of a schedule with how much Thayer and BB&N have improved.

Maybe I'm super naive, but I think there's a realistic chance that it's a pretty normal ISL season. Probably no spring break in Florida for the boarding schools or the big non league match ups for teams like Seb's and Nobles, but the new schedule to determine league champs that they were set to move to last year (a 6-7 week ISL schedule followed by the three-round tournament) seems feasible. With an ISL-only schedule in mind, you could push league-wide start dates for practices/tryouts to 3/22 and league play 4/7 meaning that over 100 million vaccine shots will have been delivered before teams face off against each other. With teens being so low risk, sports (especially outdoors) not really being a cause of spread, and not wanting to deprive these kids of two full seasons of spring sports, I don't see why they don't play.

To your point boarding schools may do their own thing, and St. George's has interstate travel which could be an issue. There's 16 schools in the league, and it can be tough to get everyone rowing in the same direction. I don't know how many teams could sit out before they would no longer crown a league champion, but hopefully we don't have to find out.

[MA Lax Fan]

Other parts of the country have been playing HS sports with very little issue. I’m not sure why New England ignores this fact.

[Laxxal22]

Public schools are starting football on February 22nd (burr!). If that's taking place without issue in early to mid March then it'll be really difficult to tell the families that there won't be lacrosse.

[Can Opener]

ISL schools have begun notifying athletes that “scrimmages” will begin shortly after they return from spring break. The schools seem to vary on whether or not they will allow some type of captains practice or full practice during spring break. If they are only calling them scrimmages, it seems very unlikely there will be a league championship awarded.

[MA Lax Fan]

I just took a round trip flight to Atlanta. The plane was at full capacity, both ways, with strangers flying all over the world - but my kid can’t ride a school bus w/ his team and play a game on an open field.

The science really confuses me?

[Sidelinehorn!]

Follow the money and it will make sense...The school already has your tuition dollars...

[Laxxal22]

Well I'm glad I didn't take the time to turn my notes into a season preview yet. That's disappointing but not entirely surprising when you're dealing with 16 schools. One glimmer of hope if things keep improving is that with the change to a year end tournament to determine league champs, instead of the previous 15-game table schedule, they could change "scrimmages" to "games" pretty late into the schedule and still figure out the championship and consolation tournaments. Some schools have been streaming a fair number of hockey and basketball scrimmages/games this winter. I'm sure we'll see that from some of the stronger programs.

[Can Opener]

Ivies, NESCAC & ISL. The leagues that outwardly appear to have the smartest folks, do not seem to be handling spring lacrosse very wisely. The ISL has a robust indoor box league going on right now, but they will not allow outdoor games. The same athletes participated in a full fall club lacrosse tournament schedule and now the box lacrosse league. They are also allowed to hang out at Shake Shack with no masks on. Tightly supervised interscholastic competition among ISL teams may be the safest activity these kids do in any given week. One of the stated reasons for not holding a season is that the ISL schools vary in their Covid testing and compliance protocols. That would seem to be a fairly easy problem to solve. Fingers crossed for rationality to emerge.

[Laxxal22]

It's definitely frustrating when a little creative thinking could solve a lot of the perceived issues. Limit away team roster sizes and locker room use, break the league into north and south divisions to minimize travel or boarding and day divisions to align on testing protocols. There will be so much vaccine distributed between now and the end of May, and the virus clearly shows signs of being seasonal. They can find ways to proceed with caution to have enough of a regular season for playoff seedings.

There hasn't been a pubic facing cancelation like the one issued y the Founder's League yet, which is somewhat encouraging. I wonder if the ISL could have a "quorum" season. Like if twelve schools want to give it go and four don't, could the twelve play for a slightly asterisked league championship.

[Laxxal22]

And here you go. I don't know what "non-traditional" means, especially when traditional league play was set to change in 2020, but happy for boys lacrosse and all ISL athletes who will get the chance to play for their schools this spring. https://twitter.com/MXSchoolBVL/status/ ... 36/photo/1

[Sportin' Life]

Agreed. It's a good sign. Does anyone have a copy of this letter? Would love to see it, if so. The only mention I've found of it is the tweet above.

[Can Opener]

Here is the core of the letter:

We are happy to share our planning for the spring season that we believe best supports all ISL school communities:
This spring's non-traditional ISL season will span from April 16 through May 29, 2021 for those able to participate.
Some ISL schools may choose to play scrimmages before or after those dates, and some may not be able to participate for all or part of the spring season based on individual health and safety considerations and inter-state travel limitations.
While we are eager to create a spring schedule that generates as much predictability and stability as possible, we are cognizant that we will also experience a good deal of change along the way, with schools coming in and out of the schedule based upon their ability to play. Our goal will be to accommodate all ISL teams interested and able to play each week, which will require agility and flexibility in our scheduling.
We will strive to play as many ISL games and levels (varsity and sub-varsity) as possible, depending upon individual schools’ abilities to participate.
We will continue to operate with agreed-upon safety protocols across the league for ISL sports, drawing upon the most recent state and CDC guidelines.
For those sports in which not all ISL schools compete (crew and track), athletic directors will collaborate to share best practices and establish guidelines that provide for the safest environments for competition.
Recognizing we will be missing some ISL teams from all or part of our spring season, there will not be any traditional ISL league champions this year. We will, however, continue to consider ways to create highlight moments for our students this spring season.