Cornell 2020

[VeryRustyRed]

My first observation - it's a lot easier for one's defense to look good when the team doesn't lose 7 out of 10 face-offs.
Other thoughts:
-As I thought during the Fall scrimmage Fall vs. Maryland, the team looks like it has a lot more team speed than the last few years (especially the 2nd line; not much height, but they continually ran past their defenders).
-Without a finisher like Pettersen this season, look for Teat to work well with Donville. Donville had a number of real quick box-like releases off of two man games with Teat. He looked far more involved/active than last season.
-Having two 1st line north-season dodgers is going to be very tough for teams to defend. Albany initially put a pole on Donville and shorties on Fletcher and Telesco. That didn't work very well.
-Lombardi is going to be a star. He had a terrific face dodge goal with lots of whip on the shot. Same move he used vs. Maryland to score on. He also had a great goal on an invert. Given that he was a great x-dodger at Salisbury, I think we will see more of that.
-SS rotation - Bardwell and Duggan and Blake and Buczek. I thought Duggan had a great game, excelled as a F/O wing as well.
-Great to see Petrakis on the field. I think that in time, he will be excellent (he had no summer and no Fall lax). Looks like he needs work after gaining possession, post-clamp.
-Ierlan - a real talent.
-As Red Ivy wrote, 'not sure what was going on during the 4th quarter leaving an Albany attackman open on the doorstep...time after time. Granted, it's hard to keep your edge in a blowout, but this kept happening prior to 4th quarter substitutions.
-I wonder if Cornell will see more zone. It definitely slowed down the Cornell onslaught. I'm also not sure that the 2nd line is all that well equipped skill-wise to thrive against a zone. At least not nearly as well as the 1st line.

[CU77]

Among those in attendance were Cornell senior attack Ryan Maloney, who injured his spinal cord while vacationing in New Jersey last July. He's the brother of Great Danes defensive coordinator John Maloney, a UAlbany graduate.

Ryan Maloney and their parents sat behind the UAlbany bench.

UAlbany played a pregame message from Marr on the scoreboard dedicating the game to Ryan Maloney.

"We really appreciate the thoughtfulness and the message and the concern for the families involved,'' Milliman said. "It was a really first class thing to do by Coach Marr and the Albany program to recognize the Maloney family."

https://www.timesunion.com/sports/artic ... 059480.php

[laxjuris]

WOW, what a start, and not to boast (you guys know thats not my style), but if you read my analysis from yesterday, almost all the points I made played out today like:

1. I said if we could just hold our own on the X, we would be in great shape with this offense, and not only did they jold their own, they DOMINATED, and the great thing is that we dont have to wear down Raz, this year like last year, as Petrakis and Graham are capable if not outstanding. What a start for PETRAKIS, and we have him for 4 YEARS, scary.
2. Reduce our allowed goals by 1,5-2 goals. Defense was outstanding all day and our GROUNDBALLS were awesome as we won nearly all 50/50, and as I stated, Salvatore may be the best LSM in the country and can play close D also.
3.Chase is just so solid in goal and never gets rattled.
4.I said we have 2 MONSTER middie lines and wow, do we ever. I said break out time for Lombardi and 3 goals proves he will be a force with Donville, Telesco, and of course Fletcher.
5. Even though he went scoreless, Long fit in well with Teat (as usual, passes that are mind boggling), and Piatelli, and will obviously get in the scoring column, with Teat feeding you the ball.

To have a start like this on the ROAD, against a quality opponent is I think more than even many of us expected, but as I said, I think this team can be scary good if not great and we will make alot of noise this year.

Heres my top ten tomorrow:
1.Virginia
2. Penn State
3. Yale
4.Maryland
5. Syracuse
6. Notre Dame
7. North Carolina
8. Cornell
9.Duke
10.Penn

GOBIGRED
Joewillie78

Army probably belongs in the top 10, as they have crushed decent teams (UMASS & Rutgers)

[faircornell]

As was mentioned by 1313 on the Army thread, Ryan Sposito, Richie Moran's grandson, is a Freshman middie on the Army squad. Ryan is (1,1) in scoring after three games.

[Ivyman]

Among those in attendance were Cornell senior attack Ryan Maloney, who injured his spinal cord while vacationing in New Jersey last July. He's the brother of Great Danes defensive coordinator John Maloney, a UAlbany graduate.

Ryan Maloney and their parents sat behind the UAlbany bench.

UAlbany played a pregame message from Marr on the scoreboard dedicating the game to Ryan Maloney.

"We really appreciate the thoughtfulness and the message and the concern for the families involved,'' Milliman said. "It was a really first class thing to do by Coach Marr and the Albany program to recognize the Maloney family."

https://www.timesunion.com/sports/artic ... 059480.php

Most of the game Ryan was with the team on the sideline. It was great to see that he was very mobile - just a small limp. Could take a knee and get up , play some pass and catch with another player and generally just did not look like a guy with a serious spinal injury.

Fully agree that it was very classy what UAlbany did in dedicating the game to him. Very.

[Trumansburger]

Good game Big Red at Albany! Now time to look forward to Towson on the road Friday afternoon. Tigers were pre-season top 20 but have struggled with losses to Hopkins and Mt St Mary.

Towson returns 3 of 4 top goal scorers from last year in McLean, Fromert and Maloof. Senior middie Jon Mazza returns after missing last year. He‘s leading scorer so far in 2020. Also returning is Koby Smith, 2019 USILA Second Team All-American and 2020 Tewaaraton Watch List, and 2 other starters on defense. Thankfully FO guy Woodall is gone. He took 22 of 26 in last year’s game, won by CU 18-11. Clark Petterson had a career game with 8 goals last year.

A winnable game for CU. Towson coach Shawn Nadalen would love an upset win versus Cornell to get his Tigers back on track.

Go Big Red!

[Matnum PI]

[VeryRustyRed]

A few other noteworthy observations about the game:
1) The 1st line middies remind me (more) of the outstanding 1st line two years ago when Dowiak (40+ goals) teamed as a alley dodger with Fletcher.
Last season, that asset didn't exist; Fletcher, McCulloch, and Donville didn't complement one another as well. This season, with Telesco, it's a very different mix with Fletcher and Donville. Yesterday, Albany started with a pole on Fletcher, but as Donville took off, they moved the pole to him. Fletcher and Telesco had great days.
2) Last year's offense was pretty balanced between attack and the midfield. It was neither attach nor middie centric. Yesterday, besides Teat's one second half goal, the attach generated 3 goals, all from Piatelli. Long took no shots. That will change as the season goes on and he matures. It will need to as Teat is played differently than he was a freshman and sophomore.
3) I thought Adler was excellent yesterday - at 5'8", he didn't give up anything to Nanicote's (sp-?) big body/physicality. I think he has lots of upside potential.

[ICGrad]

A winnable game for CU. Towson coach Shawn Nadalen would love an upset win versus Cornell to get his Tigers back on track.

Towson scares me; on the road, on a short week, against a good (but struggling) team with their backs against the wall. Last year they were #1 in the country when we smacked them, 18-11. I imagine they'd love nothing more than a little payback.

[Trumansburger]

Tech question. Anyone else can't see Matnum PI's recent post? It shows as a lot of blank space on my screen. Using Safari 13.0.5 on MacBook Pro laptop. Looking at Page Source it appears to be a youtube video. I have Adobe plugin enabled. Thanks.

[laxjuris]

A few other noteworthy observations about the game:
1) The 1st line middies remind me (more) of the outstanding 1st line two years ago when Dowiak (40+ goals) teamed as a alley dodger with Fletcher.
Last season, that asset didn't exist; Fletcher, McCulloch, and Donville didn't complement one another as well. This season, with Telesco, it's a very different mix with Fletcher and Donville. Yesterday, Albany started with a pole on Fletcher, but as Donville took off, they moved the pole to him. Fletcher and Telesco had great days.
2) Last year's offense was pretty balanced between attack and the midfield. It was neither attach nor middie centric. Yesterday, besides Teat's one second half goal, the attach generated 3 goals, all from Piatelli. Long took no shots. That will change as the season goes on and he matures. It will need to as Teat is played differently than he was a freshman and sophomore.
3) I thought Adler was excellent yesterday - at 5'8", he didn't give up anything to Nanicote's (sp-?) big body/physicality. I think he has lots of upside potential.

Solid observations. I was going to post that Adler was terrific and basically shutdown one of the most talented attackmen in D1 lacrosse. Other than the 4th Q lull, the D played better and more cohesively than at any point last season.

Another unsung hero was Duggan. He was a demon on ground balls and along with Bardwell and Bartolotto helped us control the middle of the field. Blake got some run at ssdm as well, which is what I expected given our needs at that position, his athleticism, and the fact that there’s no room for him presently at offensive middie.

Ierlan may have only had a 50% save %, but in the 2nd Q when the game was still very much in play he made some big saves on some point-blank shots. Very comforting to have a goalie with his ability.

Great to see Raz and the rest of the FO unit put on an overall excellent performance. That young man has battled through injuries and a lot of adversity, and it’s nice to see him get rewarded yesterday. With Petrakis and Graham also looking solid in their more limited opportunities, it’s an encouraging start for what we all know was the biggest question mark heading into the season. With the gauntlet of outstanding FOGO’s peppering the schedule, we can only hope that the FO unit will be competitive throughout the season, and having a few quality guys to run out there can really help matching up with different styles.

And finally, Kudos to Milliman and his staff for not only coaching the team to an excellent performance, but also recruiting the kind of talent across the roster necessary to compete at the highest level. We now have quality depth at every position (although maybe a bit more unproven on defense), and as Another Fan has informed us, next year’s class looks talented.

While there are lots of great teams this year in D1 lacrosse, and there’s no guarantees where we’ll end up this year, it’s nice to know we should be able to compete with just about anyone out there.

[Trumansburger]

Tech question. Anyone else can't see Matnum PI's recent post? It shows as a lot of blank space on my screen. Using Safari 13.0.5 on MacBook Pro laptop. Looking at Page Source it appears to be a youtube video. I have Adobe plugin enabled. Thanks.

Solved! In case anyone is interested, Safari on Mac will not allow insecure Youtube content (http) embedded in a secure page (https). I see the video only when I open fanlax.com with http://.

[Velvet.Fog]

There is not much to add to the already thorough takeaways from the 19-10 win at Albany, but I provide a few thoughts below. Interestingly, the game marked Albany’s worst home loss in 10 years.

* to me, the player of the day for the Red was Adler. He was excellent against a very good player in Tehoka. He was giving up ~40 lbs to a player that moves well and is very skilled. Albany never got in an offensive flow of any sort for 3 quarters thanks primarily to how he played Tehoka. More importantly, it Signals that Adler can guard a top attackman. We will need him to play well against the likes of Ament, Morrill, Rehfuss, etc.

* the other key to me was the play of Chase in goal. Cornell was man down - including a 2-man down - for a good stretch in Q1. Albany came away with nothing. This really set the tone for the rest of the game. He is a top 5 goalie in the country and only gets better all the time.

* the offense was impressive - all around. Most of the scoring was from the midfield - but I’m sure we will see that flip to the attack in future games. All of our first line mids are match up problems. Teams will be forced to pole them up. Telesco had some very impressive north south dodges where he gets his hands free. He will only get more confident as the season wears on. We will no doubt see more shorties on others (Long) as defenses focus on our mids. We will need to exploit these matchups. The attack did not do much but can carry a game if needed. No worries there.

* the second mids generated some excellent offense. Although not big, they each present challenges of different sorts and can be very effective. What was most encouraging to me was ball protection and shot selection by them. We have seen a tendency for bad shots and turnovers from them as younger players, but absolutely no signs of that yesterday. JJ looked very poised and athletic.

* Bardwell and Duggan were also stars yesterday. Very effective in matchups and strong off the ground. Blake got some runs at d-mid and looked like he can help that group. Griffin B not so much. The early goal by Alb where he was inverted was a lesson in poor defensive fundamentals. Bears watching for sure. LSMs were good. Bartolotto very solid. Will be fun to see Boccafola’s progress.

* FOGOs were good against almost no competition. Shocking to see Alb go with poles so early. Feels good to be on the other side of that equation. But there are plenty of tough match ups coming at the X very soon. The Petrakis goal and the team’s excitement after it were things of beauty.

Couldn’t have asked for a better start. Hopefully Albany goes on to win some tough ones to help improve the resume - although I’m not optimistic that will happen. Cornell needs to win the games they are favored in and hope to get a W versus one of PSU, Yale, Penn or Cuse. This coming weekend is two games on short rest - Friday night and Sunday afternoon. Not an easy schedule no matter the opponent. But one at a time boys.....

VF

[Farfromgeneva]

How did Tehoka look? Had heard that he lost a few pounds and was very motivated this year. Is Albany a top 20 team this year from what you guys could tell.

Lots of opponents for each first but I’m really looking forward to a later season Cornell-Hobart matchup this year. One game at a time but I really like our squad and you guys also appear improved over last year.

[Velvet.Fog]

Tehoka looked good physically - thinner and quicker. The announcers even commented on his new physique and renewed commitment this season. He simply was not effective against Adler in the first three quarters. He made a couple of plays late but the game was out of reach. My sense is that he can still be very effective. He just doesn’t have a lot firepower around him.

Albany did not look like a top 20 team yesterday. Face offs are a big issue. Lack of midfield threats. Defense looks average and goalie struggled at times. They will need to make some real improvements soon or risk a lost season.

Hobart looks very good so far. A weeknight match up under the lights on the Kopf on 3/31 should be a lot of fun. Best of luck to the Statesmen until then!

VF

[Farfromgeneva]

Thanks, good luck to the Big Red as well until our game. Don't let your guard down against Towson, they are going to be like wounded dogs this weekend and have talent.

[joewillie78]

How did Tehoka look? Had heard that he lost a few pounds and was very motivated this year. Is Albany a top 20 team this year from what you guys could tell.

Lots of opponents for each first but I’m really looking forward to a later season Cornell-Hobart matchup this year. One game at a time but I really like our squad and you guys also appear improved over last year.

FFG,
Your team can light it up. With that offense, if your FOGO is having a good day, then you are a very scary team. I believe we play the Bart 3/31 at night at the Kopf. The weather could be 70, or 15 that night. Either way, we hope that alot of the Hobart fans make the trip and we have a great night of Lax.
In the meantime, good luck against that powerhouse up north. They were scary before they got Scanlon, and now with that guy, and Reyhfuss, and Trimboli and Cook and on and on, they are to me the best team in the ACC and maybe the best team in the country.
GOBIGRED
Joewillie78

[molo]

The forecast for the game should make the men from CNY feel comfortable—nice and sunny and in the 30s.

[CU88]

Forgive me if this was posted already, I didn't see it above:

Love the 2 goal sequence for CU @ #4 and then Albany #2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK7Uj79dyQc

[faircornell]

The team looks really good. Thanks for sharing. I didn't see the game. It looks like the offensive playmaking has really gone to a new level from last year. The physicality and shooting of the midfield will help us, in any event, but especially against PSU, Cuse, Penn and Yale.