THE 2019 Hopkins Lacrosse Fallout Shelter (44, we want more!)

[Typical Lax Dad]

I see what you did there TLD...

I was just making an observation about college lacrosse recruiting the past few years. I think it is better to fill classes with the best juniors instead of filling classes with the best freshmen. There will always be special freshmen but not sure you can fill a class with special freshmen. Hopkins will be fine. It's early and there are good young players on the roster.

[DaneFan]

I see what you did there TLD...

I was just making an observation about college lacrosse recruiting the past few years. I think it is better to fill classes with the best juniors instead of filling classes with the best freshmen. There will always be special freshmen but not sure you can fill a class with special freshmen. Hopkins will be fine. It's early and there are good young players on the roster.

Where is the like button?

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

I see what you did there TLD...

I was just making an observation about college lacrosse recruiting the past few years. I think it is better to fill classes with the best juniors instead of filling classes with the best freshmen. There will always be special freshmen but not sure you can fill a class with special freshmen. Hopkins will be fine. It's early and there are good young players on the roster.

Where is the like button?

Yeah, we need a Like button someday.

I’m in favor of a thumbs down too.

More importantly, I thought TLD was making a nice dig at all the “talent evaluator” reporters who usually just parrot the coaches.

[CharmCityLaxMan]

Here is a discussion question and would love to get some feedback... Two questions, is this early recruiting that Petro did with getting phenoms in 8th grade catching up? and he just does not have the talent? Or does it come down to coaching and not being prepared?

Not particularly aimed at Coach Petro but it’s common sense that recruiting the best juniors in high school is better than recruiting the best freshmen. The power schools gave away their advantage when they started going earlier and earlier, in my opinion. Hopkins will be fine but kids see you can play good lacrosse at a lot of schools and you can win games. The calendar being pushed back will help but we aren’t going back to how it was 10-12 years ago when kids dreamed of playing at 3-4 schools.

At least in the case of Joey Epstein, Coach Petro saw into the crystal ball correctly. The Washington Post named Joey the DC player of the year.

Joey is a great player, but with all due respect, WaPo All Met is a total joke. I could field a team of kids left off WaPo's lists and beat their first team, including Joey (who would never get the ball).

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

Here is a discussion question and would love to get some feedback... Two questions, is this early recruiting that Petro did with getting phenoms in 8th grade catching up? and he just does not have the talent? Or does it come down to coaching and not being prepared?

Not particularly aimed at Coach Petro but it’s common sense that recruiting the best juniors in high school is better than recruiting the best freshmen. The power schools gave away their advantage when they started going earlier and earlier, in my opinion. Hopkins will be fine but kids see you can play good lacrosse at a lot of schools and you can win games. The calendar being pushed back will help but we aren’t going back to how it was 10-12 years ago when kids dreamed of playing at 3-4 schools.

At least in the case of Joey Epstein, Coach Petro saw into the crystal ball correctly. The Washington Post named Joey the DC player of the year.

Joey is a great player, but with all due respect, WaPo All Met is a total joke. I could field a team of kids left off WaPo's lists and beat their first team, including Joey (who would never get the ball).

Okay, list them.

[HopFan16]

Here is a discussion question and would love to get some feedback... Two questions, is this early recruiting that Petro did with getting phenoms in 8th grade catching up? and he just does not have the talent? Or does it come down to coaching and not being prepared?

Not particularly aimed at Coach Petro but it’s common sense that recruiting the best juniors in high school is better than recruiting the best freshmen. The power schools gave away their advantage when they started going earlier and earlier, in my opinion. Hopkins will be fine but kids see you can play good lacrosse at a lot of schools and you can win games. The calendar being pushed back will help but we aren’t going back to how it was 10-12 years ago when kids dreamed of playing at 3-4 schools.

At least in the case of Joey Epstein, Coach Petro saw into the crystal ball correctly. The Washington Post named Joey the DC player of the year.

Joey is a great player, but with all due respect, WaPo All Met is a total joke. I could field a team of kids left off WaPo's lists and beat their first team, including Joey (who would never get the ball).

Yes, I'm sure the kid who had 336 points in his career at Landon would never get the ball.

(He also won the Kelly Award in 2018 for Maryland's best player, an award chosen by the coaches association, that's previously been given to Ryan Conrad, Shack Stanwick, and Colin Heacock—but I guess that one is a total joke too.)

[flalax22]

I dont care about polls but it's great to see that Quint remains an insufferable Dbag. The only media person to drop Hop from the top 20 is that goof.

[runrussellrun]

I dont care about polls but it's great to see that Quint remains an insufferable Dbag. The only media person to drop Hop from the top 20 is that goof.

What's that say about all the other media rumpswabs? You see Towson in anyones top 20 last week?
Tell us what part of Hopkins game makes them top 20 worthy? The uniforms? He didn't rank Syracuse either....but did rank UVA? Not consistent.

It's the media poll that is a joke. Army and Navy both should be in over Hopkins and UVA.

If you don't care about polls......don't care.

[jhu06]

Was not a word of that petro press conference I did not like. Fantastic stuff. What struck me was that it was a 180 from all the offseason and preseason interviews he did where he mostly deflected and tried to avoid talking about the team. The issues I have are that they've known for years they were going to be young this season in the middle of the field, that their leaders were going to need to step up, plenty of tape on these towson guys aside from the goalie who didn't have to do that much and while they came out ok, they still couldn't answer. the season is not over and I don't think anyone has jumped off the roof of the clc. Petro always talks about the knowns and character, toughness, experience were going to be known concerns for the 2019 team and they didn't have that saturday. You think back to crawleys debut against ohio state in 2014 or 15 where they won at home in ot starting over with a new generation of guys. they were ready then from day one.

-I'm not interested in your complaining about the tv schedule or early recruiting. It's not 2005, almost every game is available in some form or another and if it's not that's on the program, its boosters and students parents for not getting the ad to get its act together. I spelled out in vivid detail on the other site years ago with a uva/loyola/jhu comparison after loyola won a title how recruiting rankings and when kids sign don't correlate to success necessarily. You can look at the pedigrees of the towson kids and compare them to the hopkins kids they beat saturday. Petro decides his recruiting strategies, and has to coach/live with them.

-Wombat's right, like and dislikes should've been added, also the the most successful part of laxpower was the rpi/sos/schedule history navigation page. Not sure what these ppl running this site are up to but along with the forum that was a key part lp.

onto loyola.

[molo]

It will be interesting to see the effect of CRS on the Loyola game. Snow certainly did not slow down the Hounds last year.

[flalax22]

I dont care about polls but it's great to see that Quint remains an insufferable Dbag. The only media person to drop Hop from the top 20 is that goof.

What's that say about all the other media rumpswabs?

That they aren't spiteful alumni who are always looking to run down the program? Listen I'm not advocating that we deserve top 20 billing it. I'm simply pointing out the only media guy who dropped us is the alumni who constantly has an axe to grind.

[HopFan16]

I won't argue that the Jays deserve to be in the top 20. They certainly did not play like a top 20 team over the weekend.

Having said that, Quint never, ever misses an opportunity to drag his alma mater. He is more critical of the Blue Jays than any other lacrosse writer or analyst that I am aware of.

My theory is that he had some kind of falling out with Petro either during or after their playing days. Absolutely no evidence to corroborate that whatsoever. But it's kind of funny to think about it. From what I know of the both of them, it seems like kind of a personality clash.

Maybe he just takes it super personally when his former team is not playing up to his standards—as some posters here and on LaxPower have done. With the exception of the ever-optimist DocB, for the most part Hopkins alumni are indeed pretty hard on the team.

Back to lacrosse: Curious to see how the Jays defend Spencer. They've done a mix of shutting him off and putting our best defender on him to try to limit his impact on the offense. He's going to get his points no matter what. But you've got to keep him in the 3-5 range, rather than the 6-10. Of course, I don't think the Jays should be too concerned with scouting the opponent this week. Priority numero uno is fixing the mistakes in house. Correct the unforced errors, play with more energy, and the rest will come.

[johnnyonthegunpowder]

In addition 16, Quint's a 'grow the game' type, so with Hopkins being everything that is traditionally great about the sport he's seems to make strides to oppose them.

I'm with you 06, I liked everything Petro said in the presser myself. Sure would be interesting to be at practice this week.

[Drcthru]

QK seems pretty happy when the Jays are doing well. Tell me if I'm wrong but, maybe he bends over backward to not be perceived as a homer.

[flalax22]

Interesting to notice Terry O' Riordan indirectly taking Cole Williams to task on Dan Aburns post about former Loyola teammates "dapping" each other after a Towson goal.

https://twitter.com/Dan_Aburn/status/10 ... 9267985409

[molo]

I think he is objective and fair. He stresses conditioning, training, and nutrition, hallmarks of all major sports, where simply being introduced to the game at a young age creates a tremendous advantage. A lack of "athleticism" and ultraconservative philosophies on offense and defense are going to emerge as even greater liabilities in the shot clock era. I saw the replay of the Towson stomping. It's good to be bigger, faster, quicker, and stronger than your opponent.
Loyola embarrassed UVA, no doubt about it, but the save differential contributed to the margin of slaughter. Stats like gbs and shots, though the game looked awfully one sided to me, reveal that the losers were somewhat competitive physically with the Hounds. If UVA, with better middies and in my minority view better attackmen than Hopkins, got blown out by the Hounds, the Jays could be calling. "Katy, bar the door!" next Saturday.

[Wood Sticks 4ever]

One thing that hit me that I have yet to see mentioned. Our offensive middies spent ALOT of time on the defensive side of the field. Concannon and DeSimone in particular seemed to be looking real confused quite alot. Maybe Tinney spoiled us last year with some good defense, but we looked real small and slow on transition defense. Seems like we need bigger, faster offensive middies to transition to defense (calling Mr. Zinn) or a way to better deal with transition substitutions

[Hawkeye]

I dont care about polls but it's great to see that Quint remains an insufferable Dbag. The only media person to drop Hop from the top 20 is that goof.

What's that say about all the other media rumpswabs?

That they aren't spiteful alumni who are always looking to run down the program? Listen I'm not advocating that we deserve top 20 billing it. I'm simply pointing out the only media guy who dropped us is the alumni who constantly has an axe to grind.

If Hop wins on Saturday, they deserve to be top 20. If they don't win, they probably won't be there anyway. This will correct itself soon enough.

[xxxxxxx]

Interesting to notice Terry O' Riordan indirectly taking Cole Williams to task on Dan Aburns post about former Loyola teammates "dapping" each other after a Towson goal.

https://twitter.com/Dan_Aburn/status/10 ... 9267985409

They were high school teammates, no problem with a low key tap of the gloves. Move on.

[DocBarrister]

Interesting to notice Terry O' Riordan indirectly taking Cole Williams to task on Dan Aburns post about former Loyola teammates "dapping" each other after a Towson goal.

https://twitter.com/Dan_Aburn/status/10 ... 9267985409

Does anyone doubt that Coach Petro (and/or the captains) had a little “chat” with Cole Williams about this? Wouldn’t be surprised if that “dapping” made Coach Dwan’s lowlight reel from the game.

Would love to hear #38’s take on that. Aren’t the Blue Jays supposed to be absolutely & inconsolably p*ssed whenever their opponent scores a goal?

DocBarrister