Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens 2020

[xxxxxxx]

Quint K just had a big hot take. He thinks Delaware can go undefeated!?

Quint loves to stir the pot, pretty silly statement. He had Penn State number 4 in his rankings last week. Take him with a big grain of salt.

[Henpecked]

Crazy to mention ANY team going undefeated at this point in the season.

UD has a stealthily tough schedule that includes a more-seasoned St. Joe's squad, Reigning MAAC champs Marist, Villanova who returns every offensive weapon from last year, the much-improved BIG12 teams in Johns Hopkins and Michigan, along with a the Thunderdome that is the CAA conference. Completely absurd to suggest that they'll go undefeated. But that is Quint.

Hens have one goal and that is to win the CAA and get into the tourney. They need to stay healthy and improve every week in order to do this. Especially with so many freshman and sophs contributing.

NJIT tomorrow at home in the freezing cold. Debating whether to head to Newark to sit in the cold or watch from the comfort of my living room on a big screen. Go Hens!

[xxxxxxx]

Game no 1000 in program history tomorrow for the Hens.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8kDmBEB494 ... u9twzm7opm

[Henpecked]

For those who watched the past two games, the Hens need to tighten up their #$%! in the first quarter, where they have played a little loose. From quarter 2 on, they look like a disciplined team that can contend for the CAA championship. And that should be the ONLY goal.

A road game against St.Joe's on Hawk Hill tomorrow afternoon should be a good test. If they come out flat and turn the ball over carelessly, it could turn into a mid-week nightmare for the Hens. Although, I am not expecting that.

I think that UD comes out firing on all cylinders tomorrow. St. Joe's has a nice young team and talented goalie in Adler. They also have a tough sophomore FOGO who will present a challenge. Jake Hervada coming off a strong game this weekend and on the season (.609), needs to continue that momentum at X.

Looking forward to it. GO FBH!

[Henpecked]

Hens have to be disappointed after yesterday's loss to St. Joe's. You have to tip your hat to the Hawks for playing so hard after a beat down from Penn State just three days earlier. They played an incredibly physical game on both sides of the ball with offensive dodgers dive-bombing the crease all day. And Makar was unbelievably physical covering Charlie Kitchen.

Delaware started the day off with another horrific first quarter with 4 turnovers and 0 goals. They rebounded nicely, scoring 6 goals in the 2nd quarter and actually took an 8-6 lead into the final quarter. And, for the second straight game the opposing goalie had a ton of saves. MIke Adler put up 18 saves yesterday and the NJIT goalie had 19 saves against the Hens on Saturday. While I think many of these saves were pretty good to great, the majority of them were garden variety stick-side high shots that were easily gobbled up. Hens don't have a traditional stretch shooter at midfield like they have had in the past few years (DiSimone, Hirschmann, Kormandy, DeLargy), so they rely much more on middies cutting off screens and looking for shots in the crease. Unfortunately, they could not put away quite a few of these free looks inside. Again, you have to tip your hat to Adler who played great.

The fourth quarter got away from the Hens in a hurry when they were outscored 5-0 and really never threatened with any strong offensive possessions.

I think this is one of those "turn the page" games. Hens need to focus on ways to get better in order to compete for the CAA championship. I think people have mentioned this already, but the Hens have a stealthily tough upcoming schedule. Marist just beat Army at home, Villanova just beat Maryland at home, Michigan is looking tough and Johns Hopkins is Johns Hopkins (and hold a 10-0 record all-time vs. UD).

My takeaway from yesterday is that the Hens have to improve their shooting if they want to consistently put up 13-15 goals. That is what it takes to win games these days. Starts up in Monmouth this Saturday. Tough month lies ahead before the CAA. Hopefully, this young team continues to improve. I am thinking they will.

[MDlaxfan76]

Quint K just had a big hot take. He thinks Delaware can go undefeated!?

Quint loves to stir the pot, pretty silly statement. He had Penn State number 4 in his rankings last week. Take him with a big grain of salt.

Well yes...big grain.

I like UD's chances against Hopkins, though.
Feels like the year for an upset.

[Henpecked]

It’s tough to make any real commentary on a game that I only followed on live stats (the first game in probably 5-6 years that I didn’t witness in person or by live video). Ugh. Be good to hear some first-hand accounts. Anyone?

Anyway, watching the stats fly by over the first half I kept seeing “save by Noah Lode” time after time. In fact at halftime the Hens had a 4-0 lead but Lode had already accumulated 10 saves. I thought to myself “here we go again.” Another goalie on pace for 20 saves against UD. I have no doubt that Lode is a terrific goalie, and St Joes Mike Adler (18 saves vs Hens) is terrific as well, and NJIT freshman goalie (19 saves vs Hens) was terrific too. But there comes a point where you start to question the Hens shooting. Fortunately for UD they scored 7 goals in the second half on just 11 shots on goal. I saw a couple videos of these shots on Twitter and they looked pretty impressive. Especially a cross-field pass from Robinson to Kurtz for a diving layup on the crease.

The defense rebounded nicely against the offensively-challenged Monmouth squad with 10 caused turnovers and 11 saves from DeLuca who gave up a single goal in 55 minutes of play. Nice to see the freshman contributing with Dion, Ewing and Wasson playing a ton. Looks like Ryan Shaw and Wade Oursler are missing. Young guys stepping up.

I watched Villanova play Hofstra yesterday and they are a talented and physical team. Hens will have their hands full this Saturday keeping Kirst, Khan and Daly in check. Looking forward to this matchup in Newark. Hopefully, they get a big crowd out there. Can’t wait.

[Farfromgeneva]

For what it’s worth, I think St Joes is going to be very good this year. They got caught in first game by PSU but played a lot of young guys last year who improved progressively as the season went along to go with the best FOGO in our conference and possibly best goalie (I like our guy Sam Luccesi but Adler is known). Conference is going to come down to Hobart, SJU and RoMo and I kind of think it’ll be first two. Beat a solid PC yest. Think they beat Drexel and are 5-2 (loss to UPenn) going into conference play and expect them to take no more than 2 losses in conference, probably no more than 1. That would leave them at 10-4 or 11-3 going into conference tourney.

Just for what it’s worth.

[Henpecked]

I was not suggesting that St Joe’s is not a good team. It’s just that the Hens outshot them 42-32 and still lost. Adler was very good but there were a lot of Hen shots that most would consider turnovers.

St Joe’s beat a very good Providence team yesterday but I would not pencil in a victory over Drexel yet. The Dragons are 0-2 and have won exactly ONE February game in the last five seasons. They usually wake up in March. So the March 6 battle with Drexel might be a tough W for the Hawks. We shall see.

CAA looks beat up right now but come conference play I think there is a good chance that all of them will be clicking.

[Farfromgeneva]

Not penciling it in but my prediction that SJU can take that one. They’re still young and should improve as season goes along as well.

Just saying that end of year you may look at the SJU L as not that bad of a thing overall.

[10stone5]

I was not suggesting that St Joe’s is not a good team. It’s just that the Hens outshot them 42-32 and still lost. Adler was very good but there were a lot of Hen shots that most would consider turnovers.

St Joe’s beat a very good Providence team yesterday but I would not pencil in a victory over Drexel yet. The Dragons are 0-2 and have won exactly ONE February game in the last five seasons. They usually wake up in March. So the March 6 battle with Drexel might be a tough W for the Hawks. We shall see.

CAA looks beat up right now but come conference play I think there is a good chance that all of them will be clicking.

“They usually wake up in March”

hah

Yeah, they’re still hitting to snooze alarm.

[Henpecked]

Should be another fun game against the Villanova Wildcats tomorrow in Newark. Two years ago, the Hens played an epic game in Newark against the Cats losing in a back and forth match where UD could just not stop Christian Cuccinello, who scored 7 goals in the heartbreaking 13-12 loss.

Last year the Hens were tied up with Nova 6-6 late in the second quarter before giving up two late goals to go down 8-6 at the half. The second half started off horribly for the Hens with a three minute unreleasable penalty in the first minute which led to the three Wildcat goals that effectively ended any chance for a comeback. The Hens were overwhelmed at the face-off X in this game, losing 27 while winning just 3. A nightmare game that every UD fan would just rather forget.

Tomorrow the Hens should expect another full-throttle offensive performance from Nova led by half-man, half-beast Connor Kirst (6'2"- 225lbs). The UD LSMs will have to keep the star middie in check in order to pull off an upset over the 17th ranked Wildcats. Unfortunately, he is not the only threat. Keegan Khan is a super-smooth operator at attack who consistently draws a double team. He is equally adept at dishing off into the crease (mostly to the girthy Corey McManus), as he is scoring. The Hens will also have to commit another long stick on the mammoth Massachusetts-ian, Patrick Daly, who, while very slow, is a very physical dodger at the lefty attack spot. Middie Matt Campbell had a big game against the Hens last year. He is a terrific outside shooter who has had a slow start to his sophomore campaign in 2020. Hope that continues.

I am certain that Coach Corrado will put senior defenseman Owen Prybylski on Charlie Kitchen. He is an exceptionally physical defenseman who loves to mix it up with equally-physical players like Kitchen. The rest of the Wildcats defense is made up of fairly middle-of- the-road guys who play well as a unit. Goalie Will Vitton is a work in progress. One thing to note. Vitton is a lefty goalie. Hens have traditionally struggled against lefty goalies, so keep an eye on shot placement.

The faceoff X should be fun to watch. Villanova has one big dog that they send out for face-offs (240 pounder Dan Fisher) and one crafty but tiny frosh fogo from Long Island (5' 5" 160lbs - Justin Coppola). Nova has been "terrible" this year at FOGO winning just 37% of its draws. BUT, they have gone against some of the best in the game in their first 4 games (Arceri, Irelan, Herbert and Calderone). So those stats are very misleading.

Bottom line is the Hens will need 15 saves from DeLuca and they will need to score at least 13 goals in order to get the W tomorrow. Not impossible, but they will have to scrap for 60 minutes. I would expect the Hens D to cause a lot of turnovers. They will need to take advantage of them. Play hard and they have a shot. Can't wait.

[Laxwatch2007]

Although I have literally watched hundreds of lacrosse games, ranging from U-9 to D-1 final fours, I don’t think that I have ever seen 2 goalies combine to go 0 for 13 on saves in the first half of a game. At the same time, I don’t think that I have ever seen an offense score 13 goals on 13 shots. That was painful to watch.

I watched the game online and from my point of view, the only good news is that the new home stands of the stadium are looking pretty nice. Does anyone know if the will be replanting a shorter hedge below the front row?

[BlueJaySince1947]

Quint K just had a big hot take. He thinks Delaware can go undefeated!?

Quint loves to stir the pot, pretty silly statement. He had Penn State number 4 in his rankings last week. Take him with a big grain of salt.

Take him with a pound of salt !!!

[Henpecked]

Two things about yesterday's game.

One Villanova is very good and has a ton of offensive weapons.

Two this is the first game that I have ever witnessed where a team has scored on it's first 16 shots on goal. EVER. Not even in high school or youth lacrosse. 16 shots on goal, 16 goals.

Hens hung for as long as they could but it was a combination of Villanova getting off some nice shots and DeLuca just not seeing the ball. I have never seen anything like it.

UD never had a chance. Every shot on goal for three quarters was a goal for the Wildcats. DeLuca finished with 3 saves on the day.

On a positive note, the team never gave up, played hard throughout the game and caused 13 turnovers against a solid Nova squad. Nova had 24 turnovers in total while the Hens only had 12.

Time to turn the page. Onto Marist. Prepare for the CAA. Gonna be a knife fight every game.

[MDlaxfan76]

Two things about yesterday's game.

One Villanova is very good and has a ton of offensive weapons.

Two this is the first game that I have ever witnessed where a team has scored on it's first 16 shots. EVER. Not even in high school or youth lacrosse. 16 shots, 16 goals.

Hens hung for as long as they could but it was a combination of Villanova getting off some nice shots and DeLuca just not seeing the ball. I have never seen anything like it.

UD never had a chance. Every shot on goal for three quarters was a goal for the Wildcats. DeLuca finished with 3 saves on the day.

On a positive note, the team never gave up, played hard throughout the game and caused 13 turnovers against a solid Nova squad. Nova had 24 turnovers in total while the Hens only had 12.

Time to turn the page. Onto Marist. Prepare for the CAA. Gonna be a knife fight every game.

I believe that happened to a UVA goalie back in Starsia era.

[Mr3Putt]

Nova is a really good team, who plays w confidence! They will contend for the Big East. No shame in that loss.

[BlueHensLaxFan]

Let’s hope the Hens bounce back from tough game and beat Marist. On to Poughkeepsie!

[faircornell]

I've seen some posts on social media with goalie's suggesting altered ball colors for added contrast. While I'm not sure that this is the correct thread or circumstance to bring it up, it's an interesting idea.

Deluca is an extremely good goalie. I'm sure he'll bounce back.

[MDlaxfan76]

I've seen some posts on social media with goalie's suggesting altered ball colors for added contrast. While I'm not sure that this is the correct thread or circumstance to bring it up, it's an interesting idea.

Deluca is an extremely good goalie. I'm sure he'll bounce back.

As a goalie son, player and dad, it would be nice to have "added contrast" but I'm not so sure anyone other than us tenders is really interested in anything reducing scoring through increased goalie saves %. Unless it's a snow day and the teams agree to play with an orange ball, if only to find it, there's always going to be an issue in some way with backgrounds and ball color.

That aside, I agree that Deluca is a first rate tender and certainly should be able to bounce back. It was a huge surprise to see him have that day, though it does happen.

The question is really what happened the other day.
Was it extremely bad biorhythms, an illness, or something else? Best case would be an illness or even biorhythms.
However, if so, he should have been removed early on when it became apparent that he was struggling.

Goalies CAN lose confidence when they have a day like that. They second guess themselves.

I was critical of Starsia when he kept his all-ACC tender in a playoff game vs Hopkins for 37 minutes without a save, giving up 16 goals. He was 56.4% on the season before that final disaster. The following year he was 48% and the following summer he was asked by Tiffany to leave the team due to a drug/police issue. (No implication at all about Deluca).

The other question is how Coach Deluca handles the situation. From some experience, I'd say that he's absolutely clueless about goaltending and about psychology so I'm not sanguine about it. But hopefully his assistants can help.

Or it was just an illness and he'll bounce back no sweat.