51percentcorn wrote: ↑Thu Dec 05, 2019 12:25 pm
Interesting season coming in no doubt - can't remember so many open questions when in fact alot of players didn't exhaust their eligibility/graduate.
- Who replaces Foley and will that player assume the role of guarding the opponents #1 attackman? Or will Rapine or Colwell bump up to that role?
- Who's the #1 goalie?
- Who's the 3rd attackman? Smith? would have appeared logical before Keogh's injury (seems like in that situation no news is bad news) but now? If Smith is on attack then that clearly suggests Concannon/DeSimone/Zinn would comprise the first mid-field - though as others have suggested - Baskin is a possibility
- Regardless - if Keogh is gone - how do you bolster the second mid-field into a semi productive unit - thin on performance and experience - now if Smith stayed at midfield and you started Murphy at attack - then you have the possibility of 2 of the 4 experienced mid-fielders going to the 2nds. and as stated before - if Murphy's most obvious skill is outside shooting - boy is that a skill the Hopkins offense needs
- Personnel changes required at LSM and SSDM - time will tell - could be better even if youth is served
The bolded selection is by far the most important question of the offseason IMO. There seems to be a lot more focus on the goalie, but it's not going to matter who's in the net if the defense gets slaughtered by Sowers, Gray, Ament, Bernhardt, etc. And it certainly won't matter who the 3rd attackman is at that point. Colwell and Rapine are both solid but I don't think it's a stretch to say that neither have, as of yet, demonstrated the ability to match feet with any of the guys I just listed. Perhaps that's because they haven't had the opportunity to do so. Colwell did a very good job when he bumped up top to guard Connor Kelly in 2018, but he had a lot of help that day from Kuhn if I recall. Both are fairly strong kids but in order not to get roasted by these top attackmen, you need some foot speed. Foley had a ton of that, so even when he was caught out of position he could often close the gap with lateral agility. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that both Colwell and Rapine have been hitting the speed ladder this offseason.
If it's not one of those guys, then it's anybody's guess. Calnan had a few positive blurbs from the fall scrimmages. Rodgers was the most touted coming out of high school and is a giant with a big wingspan but I haven't heard a peep about him since his injury in high school. Ruddy, Keneally, Gomez, McManus might be the other most likely candidates. It is mildly interesting to me that McManus is back at D after a brief tryout at SSDM last year—I thought he looked fine there—so perhaps they think his services are best utilized at close? Fox the Younger missed most (all?) of fall ball with an injury. And if it were going to happen for Steel or Shure it probably would have happened by now but who knows. Both were also big names coming out of Bullis and McDonogh respectively.
(This is all assuming that Reinson, Jaronski, and Blondell are all correctly listed at LSM and most likely won't be playing close D in 2020)