LaxPower Back-Up Stick

Back to the Future for Delaware.

You’ve got an NCAA tournament capable team out there now, like those late 70s to mid 80s teams, the late 90s teams, the mid to late 2000s teams.

UMass the same, they’re reminding me of all those pre CAA NCAA tournament UMass teams. And of course there are the Tigers.

But like those very good teams, there are a very limited number of invites available, you have got to 100% earn your way in, some very good teams didn’t make the NCAAs, I could name several. That’s what makes lacrosse different from all the others. No free lunch. But realistically, there really are two CAA teams that are NCAA capable, but, unfortunately, one will be staying home.

It would be hard to argue with Ben DeLuca’s assessment of the Hens performance against Towson this past Saturday. He said that the team played hard but lacked discipline at times. UD has certainly made mistakes throughout the season on defense and were very often picked up by the outstanding goaltending of Matt DeLuca. But it has been rare that this defensive unit collectively lost discipline the way they did against the Tigers and left DeLuca very vulnerable.

You could tell from the start of the game that the team was hyped and ready to go. When they took at 5-2 lead in the second quarter it looked like one of those games where everything was clicking on offense and the defense would do just enough to make up for the lack of wins at the face-off x. But then a series of avoidable mistakes occurred. First they took a one-minute unreleasable penalty for a late hit. Then they compounded that by throwing the ball away after a procedure call on the next face-off for another :30 seconds delay penalty on top of this. When the smoke cleared the Towson Tigers scored 4 goals in less than 2 minutes to take a 6-5 lead. The Hens would fight back with two quick goals from Joe Eisele to regain the lead 7-6.

From that point until late in the third quarter the Tigers went on a mad tear winning face-offs and scoring 7 straight goals. The last of these was another unreleasable man-up goal (the Tigers 4th on the day) from Grant Maloof after another undisciplined hit that nearly took his head off a half a minute earlier. The Hens regained composure and scored four straight goals to bring it to a two–goal game 13-11. But it was really too late – a 4th quarter goal by Timmy Monahan lifted the Tigers to a 14-12 victory.

If you told me the Hens would score 12 goals against Towson before Saturday’s game, I would have guessed that would have ended up in the W column. But alas, it did not go down that way.

The chances are pretty good that these two teams will meet up again in less than two weeks. Hoping that they learned an important lesson in this game. Hens can put points up on the board against nearly anyone. But when they don’t play good team defense and take bad penalties they really have no chance against a very good offensive team like Towson.

We shall see.

Something that might only interest me and Joe Eisele’s family: The goal that Eisele scored with :22 seconds left in the game was his 100th point (84 goals 16 assists) as a Blue Hen. The guy has been a total pro since coming off the bench his freshman year. He probably won’t get to the 100 goal club, but he made a serious run at it for sure.

Just checked on Charlie Kitchen's stats too. His assist on Saturday got him to 150 career points in less than 3 seasons. He has 98 goals and 52 assists, placing him #14 all-time for the Hens. He should pass a lot of impressive names over the next year and maybe even surpass the great Curtis Dickson who sits at #4 with 212 career points.

Last year 9-8 UMass. UD’s pace is a good contrast to match up w UMass. Delaware needs to bag the pole on the F\O. Go w the best athlete.

Mr3Putt wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2019 8:09 pm Last year 9-8 UMass. UD’s pace is a good contrast to match up w UMass. Delaware needs to bag the pole on the F\O. Go w the best athlete.

I think you are right about UD bagging the long poles on the face-offs. The Hens have not been successful with that strategy over the past two seasons. And on Saturday specifically, the poles were 2-15 on face-offs while their FOGO specialist Joe Lenskold went 7-13. Granted, Alex Woodall was gone after the first 5 face-offs, but I personally believe the Hens have a better chance with Lenskold out there. He can at least lock it up at midfield till the wings get in there to help.

Another tough test at FOGO Friday night in Amherst. UMass Senior, Tom Meyers came out of nowhere to win 62% of face-offs this year. Don't ask me to figure out FOGOs. Meyers through three years as a back up won just 46% (108-231) of the face-offs he took. Not sure how a guy improves by 16% in one year, but he has been terrific.

Meyers is a Philly kid and was a great high school wrestler, not surprised by his numbers. Coming off the bench is a lot different than being the starter, much harder to get rolling, the other guy is usually hot, etc. Practicing every day with Noah Rac helps too. He is very solid, the Hens will have their hands full.

Agree 100% on your comments about Joe Eisele, 100 points, two time captain, relentless worker and everything you could ask for in a student athlete.

UMass is most lethal on man up and in transition, Delaware needs to play with more discipline than they did last week. I certainly think they have the team to do it. It's always a tough place to go play, added incentive is that a win means they don't have to travel up there again next week. Should be a good one.

Game Notes 4.26.19 UMass v UD

The Hens meet up with UMass for the 11th time as members of the CAA this Friday night in Amherst. The series going back to 2010 when UMass joined the CAA is tied at 5 wins a piece with some really tight games over that period. Last year was a classic at Delaware Stadium with the Hens leading most of the way and taking a 7-5 lead into the 4th quarter before eventually succumbing to the Minutemen 9-8. The Hens also led at halftime 5-2 when Coach Cannella replaced the starting goalie Hampton Brannon with the hefty lefty, Sean Sconone, who had 12 saves the rest of the way. Not surprisingly, Sconone has started every game since and is the current leading D1 goaltender with a gaudy .617 save percentage this season.

Common Opponents: Both teams went 4-1 against common opponents (NJIT, Drexel, Hofstra, Towson and Fairfield) with the difference being the Hens lost to Towson 14-12 while UMass Beat the Tigers 14-10 and the Minutemen lost to Hofstra 10-9 while the Hens beat the Pride 13-7.

What to expect: The Hens can expect a rowdy Friday night lights Garber crowd to be into the game big time. They can also expect that the Minutemen will be flying all over the field fighting for every loose ball and every chance to reverse fields and employ its fast-strike offense. In last year’s game 7 of the UMass goals were the result of fast breaks, quick-strikes after face-off wins or unsettled situations. They only scored 2 goals in their 6 on 6 offense. I have watched this team play four games this year and they are still most dangerous in transition. The leader of this effort to move the ball up and down the field is senior all-world LSM Isaac Paparo who has 7 goals and 2 assists along with 60 ground balls and 28 caused turnovers. The guy is a one-man wrecking crew. But he has friends on defense too. He is joined by fleet-footed Dan O’Brien who has 27 Gbs and 9 CTs along with 3 assists. At close defense they have some big rangy athletes like Jackson Suboch who at 6’ 5” can cause attackmen some unease with 13 CTs on the season and Sam Eisenstadt at 6’ 3” with 20 GBs and 9 CTs.

Offensively, UMass has a ton of talent led by sophomore Chris Connolly who has 23 goals and 33 assists on the season. He is a Matt Varian (Drexel) clone who is a super-quick assist-first attackman with a propensity for diving into the crease and turning the ball over (27 turnovers on the season). He is joined at attack by freshman phenom Gabriel Procyk from British Columbia, who has 33 goals on the season. He is a typical left-handed off-ball Canadian scoring machine who lives on the left side of the crease. He is very crafty and scores mostly from inside 5 yards (more like 1 yard). Of course, you have to keep an eye on the middies who seem to share the scoring while sharing the ball. Jeff Trainor (21g 12a) and Kevin Tobin (18g 14a) are really athletic players who can will themselves a goal when it is needed. I watched Jeff Trainor single-handedly keep the Minutemen in the game against Yale by going solo and scoring 2 goals in the last minute to send the game to OT. The middies are killers that love to freelance in unsettled situations.

What the Hens need to do to pull off the upset: The Hens need to prevent fast breaks first and foremost. Last year UMass scored three goals directly off the face-off in unsettled situations when Noah Rak won a clean draw. Tom Meyers is having a great season winning over 60% of the face-offs for UMass, so the Hens have to think defensively when hooking up at midfield, especially with Isaac Paparo on the wing. The Hens have to play a lot better help defense than they did last week on Towson. Slides have to come quick and hard. Connelly is especially crafty when working from X. He slips in between slides, so DeLuca and Co. need to communicate better on switches and keep the Minutemen outside the crease where they seem to do the most damage.

It should be a fun game. While it would be great to pull off an upset on Friday, the game is meaningless unless Drexel can find a way to beat Towson on Saturday. As mentioned in an earlier post, the Hens only path to finishing #1 and to hosting the CAA is beating UMass Friday and hope for a Dragon upset in West Philly on Saturday. Not impossible, but highly improbable. We shall see.

Here they go CAA tournament time. For now I'll just say this, the Hens have not beat Towson or UMass since 2016 when the seniors were freshmen, ironically they lost to the other three CAA teams and missed the tournament that year. So it's four straight for Towson and three straight for UMass, sometimes you are just due.

That UDel first quarter was as good as any CAA team played this year, and I’d include the Towson-Loyola game in that comparison.

Weirdly, Towson played better after Woodall went out.

I liked Lenskold’s effort at face off.

Not sure what was up with DeLuca that game, pretty sure you can expect DeLuca to be on this game.

Obviously, just letting Maloof fire away from up top can’t be allowed to happen.

The Hens have had a very tough stretch against Towson since the birth of the CAA conference in 2001. The Hens record versus the Tigers in that time is an underwhelming 5 wins and 18 losses. Over that period the Towson Tigers have won the championship 6 times versus only 3 for the UD squad.

I have heard the “we’re due” idea floated out there and I truly want to believe that that will be the case this year. For the people who believe in the theory that it is tough to beat the same team twice in one season, I present to you the 2018 University of Delaware Mens Lacrosse who lost a regular season game to Towson AND got eliminated in the semis by the Tigers 9-8 in OT.

But for those UD fans who want to think positively, last year's results were actually somewhat of an anomaly for this series. The four previous times the teams met up twice in a year BEFORE last season, the team that won the regular season game lost in the CAA playoffs.

2005 Regular season Hens win 11-5 but lose to Tigers in the CAA finals 9-8.
2006 Regular season Towson wins 11-7 but lose to Hens in the CAA semis 13-12
2007 Regular season Towson wins 10-9 but lose to Hens in the CAA finals 10-7
2010 Regular season Towson wins 9-7 but lose to Hens in the CAA finals 10-7

So we got that going for us.

Some nice recognition for several Hens from the CAA year-end awards.

Charlie Kitchen Co-Offensive Player of the Year and 1st team All-CAA
Tye Kurtz CAA Rookie of the Year and All-Rookie Team
Dean DiSimone 1st team All-CAA
Austin Haynes 1st team All-CAA
Alex Brunner 2nd team All-CAA
Thomas Aloe 2nd team All-CAA
Matt DeLuca 2nd team All-CAA

Now all they have to do is go out and beat Towson tomorrow night.

Not prepared for a post-mortem or 2020 preview, but wanted to give a shout out Hens Goaltender Matt DeLuca for making HM All-American team this year. He stood on his head for much of the year as this young defense began to gel. Congrats on a great season.

Also, for the Canadian indoor lacrosse fans, Charlie Kitchen will be spending this summer playing for the Toronto Beaches with teammate Owen Grant in the Ontario Junior A League. This can only help his already slick skills around the crease. Should be fun.