VIRGINIA Lacrosse

[youthathletics]

Very nice tribute by US Lacrosse on Bo Moore UVA '54.

https://www.uslacrosse.org/blog/us-lacr ... asses-away

Never met your Father, but your determinations to carry on the legacy of all things lacrosse, ether on these forums or via continued support of the sport in general, is rich and pure. My sincere appreciation to you and your family and may God Bless and comfort your family through the grieving process.

[DMac]

That's some pretty darn special stuff, MDlax, sorry for your loss.
Pop beat the odds both on and off the field, you were lucky to have
him around for as long as you did, and I'd bet he was mighty proud
of his son, you're doing an awful lot of things right.

[MDlaxfan76]

Thanks so much for the very kind thoughts, guys.

I wore my dad's Class of 1954 UVA cap today and Bryan wore his PawPaw's UVA lax fleece in his honor.

The game, and most importantly its people, have indeed been very good to our family.

[HowieT3]

Thanks so much for the very kind thoughts, guys.

I wore my dad's Class of 1954 UVA cap today and Bryan wore his PawPaw's UVA lax fleece in his honor.

The game, and most importantly its people, have indeed been very good to our family.

Condolences to your family. Your dad was very important to Hoo lacrosse history.

[3rdPersonPlural]

Very nice tribute by US Lacrosse on Bo Moore UVA '54.

https://www.uslacrosse.org/blog/us-lacr ... asses-away

Lighting a candle for your dad, 76. The game has lost a true advocate, and your family has lost even more.

[Mr3Putt]

Van Arsdale's offense tallied 17 today.

The goalie position @Va is a concern. 40 shots 17goals & SIX saves. I did not attend the game. But, last year vs ND in ACC final it was glaring. This team is talented but it means nothing if you don’t make stops! Van Ardale & Spencer deserve credit but this stat line is an eye soar. . Also, Kraus, Laviano , Conrad 3-26 shooting was another rough stat!

[laxmaven]

Van Arsdale's offense tallied 17 today.

The goalie position @Va is a concern. 40 shots 17goals & SIX saves. I did not attend the game. But, last year vs ND in ACC final it was glaring. This team is talented but it means nothing if you don’t make stops! Van Ardale & Spencer deserve credit but this stat line is an eye soar. . Also, Kraus, Laviano , Conrad 3-26 shooting was another rough stat!

Just no defense in front of the goalie most of the shots were unimpeded and no goalie is going to shine if one dodge gets a guys hand free to shoot from a solid set position / every team has a spencer,.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Van Arsdale's offense tallied 17 today.

The goalie position @Va is a concern. 40 shots 17goals & SIX saves. I did not attend the game. But, last year vs ND in ACC final it was glaring. This team is talented but it means nothing if you don’t make stops! Van Ardale & Spencer deserve credit but this stat line is an eye soar. . Also, Kraus, Laviano , Conrad 3-26 shooting was another rough stat!

UVA will be fine. Hot goalie. I missed game but hope it is on demand. This will be an interesting season for Lars and his system. At Brown he had the best goalie and best FOGO in the country with a deadly shooting attack unit and two great poles...the best of which was Tullet but the other pole, Kemp, got all the attention. You can play any system and win with the FOGO, Goalie and two great defenders with that attack.

[bearlaxfan]

Year 3 for Lars, so I'll paraphrase (with name changes) my comment on Daly from the Brown page. Year 3, the rubber starts to hit the road. Especially for a coach who is supposed to be the D teacher, UVa's D has looked poor over his tenure SO FAR. Something tells me 'Hoos fans/alums aren't going to have much patience with post-loss press conferences with talk of how much fun the game was or how much you can learn from defeat. His 2016 postgame presser after the Maryland loss may be on youtube. When he started going on about what a fun game the OT loss was, Jack Kelly looked like he wanted to haul off and punch him ;- 0

[CharmCityLaxMan]

Year 3 for Lars, so I'll paraphrase (with name changes) my comment on Daly from the Brown page. Year 3, the rubber starts to hit the road. Especially for a coach who is supposed to be the D teacher, UVa's D has looked poor over his tenure SO FAR. Something tells me 'Hoos fans/alums aren't going to have much patience with post-loss press conferences with talk of how much fun the game was or how much you can learn from defeat. His 2016 postgame presser after the Maryland loss may be on youtube. When he started going on about what a fun game the OT loss was, Jack Kelly looked like he wanted to haul off and punch him ;- 0

The teaching may be an issue. And, in any event, he has recruited poorly at midfield. Loaded up on scorers at the expense of having a roster with the ability to defend. Lack of diversification has left him exposed for years to come. It's now his issue, and he can't blame Dom. A tone deafness too, as illustrated by your example.

[Voyuer]

Spencer is special, but still UVA played horrendous off ball D. I'll slide..no you slide..uh Oh... GOAL. From what I have watched, about 3-4 UVA games/year this is always an issue. They may have talented athletes but they do not play solid team D. Also I can only assume UVA has dropped the run and Gun philosophy, as they did not push tempo at all vs the Hounds. Very unlike Lars' Brown teams who would shoot quick, on all even unsettled situations, then have Malloy back up and go right to the goal and shoot within another 5-7 seconds. Brown would shoot 2-3 times before the opposing team could get D personnel on the field.

[laxmaven]

Spencer is special, but still UVA played horrendous off ball D. I'll slide..no you slide..uh Oh... GOAL. From what I have watched, about 3-4 UVA games/year this is always an issue. They may have talented athletes but they do not play solid team D. Also I can only assume UVA has dropped the run and Gun philosophy, as they did not push tempo at all vs the Hounds. Very unlike Lars' Brown teams who would shoot quick, on all even unsettled situations, then have Malloy back up and go right to the goal and shoot within another 5-7 seconds. Brown would shoot 2-3 times before the opposing team could get D personnel on the field.

To add to your comments the on-ball D was weak as well and the off-ball weakness would be less pronounced if the on ball 1:1 ok but it was inadequate to terrible across all the coverage. Moving Connors to close will give up possessions, keeping him at LSM will expose the goalie to unimpeded shots and there's no bench depth so you can bet this is going to be a big storyline this season.

[MDlaxfan76]

I think it's fair to be quite concerned about the defensive half of the field, but that's hardly news, right?

UVA's defense last year was its weakness and it's #1 defender graduated. We don't have any basis (yet) to suggest that there's one, much less two or three AA caliber close defenders on the roster. And I mean anywhere on the roster, not just upperclassmen. (maybe LSM Conners?) Obviously, those of us who are UVA fans are hoping that such talent will emerge and develop from within the current roster, but that's just 'hoping' at this point.

That doesn't mean that they can't or won't improve with 'teaching' but I think we need to understand that the combination of strength, speed, skill, and experience on D are deficits right now on the roster. I didn't see anyone who could physically match up with a Spencer.

Now, that's not exactly an insult to the UVA defenders as the reality is that there are really just a handful of players in any given year who have the physical and skill attributes of a Spencer. He has so many ways to beat a defender in his arsenal, and with the modern sticks plus his physicality, his style of play is always going to give him opportunities. To slow him down, cause him to have to work harder, press a bit, the on-ball defender needs to have the physicality and prowess to at least limit his angles. And the goalie absolutely needs to be at the top of his game, making saves. Neither happened on Saturday.

And that means that all the other defenders are going to be constantly worried about needing to 'help', opening up Spencer's terrific feeding (he 'only' had 2 assists, but more 'hockey assists'). Spencer took 9 shots, scoring 5 times, 4 unassisted...I could be mistaken but I don't recall Rode stopping any of the no-goals. Most importantly, it felt like Spencer could get a quality shot for himself anytime he desired.

Exacerbating this feeling was that Stover was so hot, making it feel like, on the other end, UVA was struggling to get a goal. Great inside opportunities, stoned or off pipes or off goal. Couldn't buy a goal at times. His outlet passes were also first rate, pushing transition.

The comment about fast paced style: In order for that to happen, you need clean wins forward at X, takeaways by poles, and clean saves with sharp outlets. UVA's poles did cause 6 turnovers, and Conners in particular had a strong day with 3CTs and 5GB's, but overall they weren't creating much forward momentum. And, at least to my recollection, none of the X wins were clean forward wins. And with just 6 saves, the tender was never turning momentum UVA's way.

TLD, if you were suggesting that UVA will be 'fine' because it has a 'hot goalie', I think we need to recognize that the sophomore tender is not consistently 'hot', indeed he was pretty darn 'cold' this past Saturday. He was sub 50% in his freshman year, sometimes outstanding but sometimes cold as ice. That happens to ALL tenders, but happened too often last year. as he would undoubtedly agree. The hope has been that he would develop more consistency this year, closer to his stellar days. That may well happen. It's early and that was just one game.

That said, my son and I were surprised that UVA didn't have a #2 up and warm by at least mid-way in the 3rd Q. It appeared they were committed to Rode no matter what was happening on the field, and indeed I think it's also right that they knew that Loyola was getting quality opportunities, so not simply a goalie issue. But we'd watched Rode's warm-up at half time, and he definitely wasn't looking sharp at all. By the time they put Thompson in at the end, it was way too late.

We're of the view that one of things a team should always be prepared to do is to make a goalie switch to shift momentum of a game. The goalie corps needs to be prepared emotionally for that to happen at any time, without necessarily a change in #1 for ensuing contests or even for later in the same game.

On paper, UVA has an excellent goalie corps. As we saw when the junior Thompson came in, he's quite capable of playing well. The senior Hudson is also a capable tender though I assume is the #4. Rode was the #1 goalie recruit in his class and has a ton of upside. But so too was freshman Burkinshaw the #1 goalie recruit in his class, so presumably has that sort of upside too.

As I was grousing in the stands that UVA should at least have a #2 warmed up (whoever that might be), my son cautioned me that we really don't know what's happening in practices nor how the goalies are competing, their emotional state etc. Yup, ok. Nevertheless, I like seeing a #2 getting a warm-up at half time regardless of how well the #1 is playing, and I want him ready to be a momentum shifter whenever needed. Do that every game and it's not a signal of lack of confidence in the #1, just a recognition that the team needs to be ready to use any option to win that specific game.

When my son was the #2, which was the case in multiple years in HS and college, a couple of mins into halftime he would get a 3rd string shooter to work him before the #1 stepped in with the coach (coaches tend to like to be with the full team for the first part of halftime). The coach would take 5-10 shots on my son, then the #1 would get his warm-up. That paid huge dividends for the team when he was called to step in for any reason for the #1. In HS he replaced the starter out for a penalty, down 6-3 and man down with 1:27 left to play, and made a 1:1 save at the buzzer to push that MIAA semi-final game to OT, then won in OT. They went on to win the championship a couple of days later. In college, he twice replaced the #1 and sparked comeback wins and ultimately earned the #1 slot. The #2, whoever it is, needs to ready to play that role. When he couldn't play due to a concussion, the former #1 took the reins back and had the best game in his career, in his final senior year game, in an upset over Yale. Fantastic. That's the way a goalie corps should work, supporting each other, but always team-first.

Of course, that's easy to say. Much harder to cultivate, given that the reality for tenders is that only one guy gets to play at a time, and usually only one guy is going to get significant minutes each year. It's much easier to be me-first rather than team-first. Indeed natural for a highly competitive individual, which certainly the best goalies must be. So, it's an interesting coaching challenge. And with the two most highly touted tenders both being underclassmen, it's probably really challenging!

Here's the good news. Early season contests are often not good predictors of May.

[Typical Lax Dad]

TLD, if you were suggesting that UVA will be 'fine' because it has a 'hot goalie', I think we need to recognize that the sophomore tender is not consistently 'hot', indeed he was pretty darn 'cold' this past Saturday. He was sub 50% in his freshman year, sometimes outstanding but sometimes cold as ice. That happens to ALL tenders, but happened too often last year. as he would undoubtedly agree. The hope has been that he would develop more consistency this year, closer to his stellar days. That may well happen. It's early and that was just one game.

I was just suggesting that over the course of the season the team will be fine. The offense is going to have to provide some cover for the defense. Not sure if Rode will come along this year. I don't like teams that have to rely on freshmen goalies and I believe Burkinshaw is 2nd on the depth chart?

[MDlaxfan76]

Year 3 for Lars, so I'll paraphrase (with name changes) my comment on Daly from the Brown page. Year 3, the rubber starts to hit the road. Especially for a coach who is supposed to be the D teacher, UVa's D has looked poor over his tenure SO FAR. Something tells me 'Hoos fans/alums aren't going to have much patience with post-loss press conferences with talk of how much fun the game was or how much you can learn from defeat. His 2016 postgame presser after the Maryland loss may be on youtube. When he started going on about what a fun game the OT loss was, Jack Kelly looked like he wanted to haul off and punch him ;- 0

The teaching may be an issue. And, in any event, he has recruited poorly at midfield. Loaded up on scorers at the expense of having a roster with the ability to defend. Lack of diversification has left him exposed for years to come. It's now his issue, and he can't blame Dom. A tone deafness too, as illustrated by your example.

Really? Lars has recruited poorly at midfield, too many offensive minded recruits at midfield?

First, seems to me that UVA's most obvious talented O middies are pretty studly cats and can play good D as well. But we can't give the credit (or the blame) to Lars for those outstanding players as they were all recruited by Dom or were in Dom's pipeline. Maybe it's fair to say that Dom attracted multiple terrific midfielders, but not enough grinders. Arguably, that was in part due to ER, but I don't think you can give credit or blame to Lars on that front.

Lars influenced the now sophomore class somewhat, but his first true class, now freshmen, have midfielders who are significantly bigger guys than the class above them. Not all of them are bigger, but it's an athletic crew, not a bunch of mites. I'd think that trend will continue. But he needs a bunch more to come in and mature. But, hey, I'll take a Conrad, an Aitken, a Moore...thank you very much.

There are also 3 pretty darn strong looking athlete poles in that freshmen class. But Lars doesn't have any juniors or seniors, fully mature, who he recruited, right?

It's going to take some cycles before you can legitimately say that Lars is not recruiting enough d-minded studs.

[runrussellrun]

Spencer is special, but still UVA played horrendous off ball D. I'll slide..no you slide..uh Oh... GOAL. From what I have watched, about 3-4 UVA games/year this is always an issue. They may have talented athletes but they do not play solid team D. Also I can only assume UVA has dropped the run and Gun philosophy, as they did not push tempo at all vs the Hounds. Very unlike Lars' Brown teams who would shoot quick, on all even unsettled situations, then have Malloy back up and go right to the goal and shoot within another 5-7 seconds. Brown would shoot 2-3 times before the opposing team could get D personnel on the field.

THis was for two years up on the hill......at most.

[MDlaxfan76]

TLD, if you were suggesting that UVA will be 'fine' because it has a 'hot goalie', I think we need to recognize that the sophomore tender is not consistently 'hot', indeed he was pretty darn 'cold' this past Saturday. He was sub 50% in his freshman year, sometimes outstanding but sometimes cold as ice. That happens to ALL tenders, but happened too often last year. as he would undoubtedly agree. The hope has been that he would develop more consistency this year, closer to his stellar days. That may well happen. It's early and that was just one game.

I was just suggesting that over the course of the season the team will be fine. The offense is going to have to provide some cover for the defense. Not sure if Rode will come along this year. I don't like teams that have to rely on freshmen goalies and I believe Burkinshaw is 2nd on the depth chart?

I don't know what the actual depth chart is at present, but they went to the junior at the end. Experienced, capable player.
We don't know injuries, mindset, all sorts of factors that could impact decisions about options.
But yes, on paper, one would guess that Burkinshaw would be #2.
On the other hand, the speed of the game is much higher in college than HS, so they may well go to the older, more experienced tender. Indeed, he may be outperforming them all in practice recently. We really don't know.

It's also super early season, February 9th for goodness sake!
So, they may simply want to be patient, especially with out of conference games.

You are certainly right about the offense needing to give cover for the defense season long, but as you've previously noted they will with need to win the GB and FO battles decisively, or their tender needs to be consistently outstanding, or both.

[Mr3Putt]

Don’t like to pinpoint kids. But, people are in la-la land if you think it’s just defenders in front of him. Go back & watch the game vs ND @ Klockner last year. Or look at this weeks stats. 17 goals on 40 shots, 6 saves. It’s something to take a look at if your making adjustments. What can we do to make stops on one side of the field.

[youthathletics]

Don’t like to pinpoint kids. But, people are in la-la land if you think it’s just defenders in front of him. Go back & watch the game vs ND @ Klockner last year. Or look at this weeks stats. 17 goals on 40 shots, 6 saves. It’s something to take a look at if your making adjustments. What can we do to make stops on one side of the field.

You also have to consider where those shots are coming from. As a coach, we use a scatter chart after film is broken down to see the yardage and angle of shots, saves, goals.

[Mr3Putt]

Don’t like to pinpoint kids. But, people are in la-la land if you think it’s just defenders in front of him. Go back & watch the game vs ND @ Klockner last year. Or look at this weeks stats. 17 goals on 40 shots, 6 saves. It’s something to take a look at if your making adjustments. What can we do to make stops on one side of the field.

You also have to consider where those shots are coming from. As a coach, we use a scatter chart after film is broken down to see the yardage and angle of shots, saves, goals.

That is a good point. Shots taken etc. & angles. So, let’s leave out VMI from 2018. The last 4 games , 3 from 2018, they have given up 47 goals. Close to 15.5 goals a game. Something has to change. Right? You don’t need scatter charts to realize things have to change.