Hobart 2023

[FMUBart]

1st half goalie was solid with a couple of point blank saves, didn’t really notice after that, all I saw was a completely flummoxed defense.

[FMUBart]

What a joke. Zero physicality. Kids look like they don’t care. Getting backed down into oblivion defensively. Need to take Canisius off the schedule. One bright spot was Simas today. Starts and ends there. Hopefully it was a bad 45 mins and they bounce back. All that matters is conference games anyways.

Agree, hate to beat a dead horse, but Simas has the D1 size we need more of

[Farfromgeneva]

Sad, just sad. Complete breakdown by the defense. By late Q2 we couldn't even pass the ball. To screw up a 2 man advantage on man-up..??? What the heck is going on? This falls completely on the defense. Though by mid Q3 our offense looked lost as well. Lehigh isn't that great. We made them look like a top 10 team. I completely disagree on the goalie situation. Please stop this "expirement" in goal. Sotiropoulos ' constant flopping put him out of position for at least 4 goals. Put Holtby back in before the season is completely lost. Up 10-6 in Q2 and Bart pulled it's usual letting up and then letting it get out of hand. You would think the pplayers would know by now that you can't take your foot off of your opponents throat. Until they learn how to that, and play basic lacrosse, Canisius may be the highlioght of the season. PATHETIC!

I agree. Interestingly enough, Hobart had an immature goalie in and things fell apart. Need an experienced presence in the goal when the opponent goes on a run. Something to acknowledge is that the goalie is the general of the defense, if their communication isn’t strong then the defense will look confused. We can discuss violations and bad calls all we want, the team wasn’t composed. It’s that simple. You need to have a calm mind in adverse situations to win. This team is still good potentially, but the game is 75 percent mental and if you can’t stay mentally tough for 60 minutes, you won’t win.

Just looking for reasons to stay optimistic but can’t disagree. But expected this to be a tough one, Lehigh is probably top 20 this year and we’re pissed about us beating them last year so didn’t expect to be up 10-4 early while having man down twice for FO violations by late Q1.

It’s early and there’s a lot of newer players. I didn’t understand benching Holtby for LK at this stage when Holtby started the last two seasons. To me if you’re going to do that then just play Wilson ans take the lumps.

[Farfromgeneva]

1st half goalie was solid with a couple of point blank saves, didn’t really notice after that, all I saw was a completely flummoxed defense.

He flops a bit and allowed two rebound goals early. Like a super charged version of Zonino.

[Farfromgeneva]

What a joke. Zero physicality. Kids look like they don’t care. Getting backed down into oblivion defensively. Need to take Canisius off the schedule. One bright spot was Simas today. Starts and ends there. Hopefully it was a bad 45 mins and they bounce back. All that matters is conference games anyways.

Agree, hate to beat a dead horse, but Simas has the D1 size we need more of

Does Bach or Barthelme look physical? Because they’re 6’2” > 200 and 6’7” 240 and the latter fell down and couldn’t pick up a ground ball when the momentum was turning at midfield.

Simas looked great but still isn’t always in control, made a number of bad passes.

Wimer was overly aggressive but I think he will be a good one for us and can hold up with anyone physically it’s very clear.

Haven’t seen Dino out there but he’s a supposed horse from my old Section 4 and ha the distinction of the only 2x AA in Section 4 history.

[cooperstef]

What a joke. Zero physicality. Kids look like they don’t care. Getting backed down into oblivion defensively. Need to take Canisius off the schedule. One bright spot was Simas today. Starts and ends there. Hopefully it was a bad 45 mins and they bounce back. All that matters is conference games anyways.

Agree, hate to beat a dead horse, but Simas has the D1 size we need more of

Does Bach or Barthelme look physical? Because they’re 6’2” > 200 and 6’7” 240 and the latter fell down and couldn’t pick up a ground ball when the momentum was turning at midfield.

Simas looked great but still isn’t always in control, made a number of bad passes.

Wimer was overly aggressive but I think he will be a good one for us and can hold up with anyone physically it’s very clear.

Haven’t seen Dino out there but he’s a supposed horse from my old Section 4 and ha the distinction of the only 2x AA in Section 4 history.

Physicality is a mentality not about size. If Dino is not out there it’s for a reason. High school prowess means absolutely nothing once you get to Geneva. I’m pretty sure the top recruits of the last 15 years were Charles Sipe, Matt Opsaol, who is my guy, and Bud Graham. “Supposed to be” isn’t a thing once you’re on campus.

[Farfromgeneva]

What a joke. Zero physicality. Kids look like they don’t care. Getting backed down into oblivion defensively. Need to take Canisius off the schedule. One bright spot was Simas today. Starts and ends there. Hopefully it was a bad 45 mins and they bounce back. All that matters is conference games anyways.

Agree, hate to beat a dead horse, but Simas has the D1 size we need more of

Does Bach or Barthelme look physical? Because they’re 6’2” > 200 and 6’7” 240 and the latter fell down and couldn’t pick up a ground ball when the momentum was turning at midfield.

Simas looked great but still isn’t always in control, made a number of bad passes.

Wimer was overly aggressive but I think he will be a good one for us and can hold up with anyone physically it’s very clear.

Haven’t seen Dino out there but he’s a supposed horse from my old Section 4 and ha the distinction of the only 2x AA in Section 4 history.

Physicality is a mentality not about size. If Dino is not out there it’s for a reason. High school prowess means absolutely nothing once you get to Geneva. I’m pretty sure the top recruits of the last 15 years were Charles Sipe, Matt Opsaol, who is my guy, and Bud Graham. “Supposed to be” isn’t a thing once you’re on campus.

Agreed Sean Murphy is a great example. I was responding to the D1 size comment. Kevin Curtin is another great example. I’m fact my entire point was some of the bigger kids don’t play physical enough. I thought that would be clear and how I quoted this string would’ve made it obvious.

Dino, by my understanding is a raw athlete and needs to work on getting up to D1 skill level like a lot of FR but they can still play SSDM. And again I was directly quoting and responding to D1 size which apparently wasn’t clear. Section 4 isn’t some soft skills laden area like parts of MD, it’s a dump, I grew up there. You’re not finding skill driven athletes coming out of that area these days like you might’ve 20yrs ago.

Archer is the most heralded recruit in the last decade. Eric Holden next. Opsahl quit but was playing and contributing nicely. Kid had like 20-25pts as a Soph I believe and decided he didn't want to do it anymore his senior year. Sipe couldn’t handle the academics which happens for lots of kids as we know not everyone graduates unfortunately.

[oldbartman]

I just don't understand Bach. He has all the physical tools. But the moment and an ssdm gives him a slight bump, he passes the ball. Teams now realize they don't have to aggressively defend him. Herlihy shooting 1 for 10 doesn't help. Through 2 games he is 3 for 20. 15% shooting as an attackman with the ball in his stick a lot isn't helping. Also still waiting to see the the excellent vision and passing by Greene that coached spoke about. We need an X attackman. Delano is doing a good job, just don't see him in the X role. Not sure if Peterkin is injured as he played in spots today. Today is a head scratcher. How did our defense leave so many guys open? It didn't help Sotiropoulos, though he did have a nice 3 quick saves in a row late. That still doesn't offset him taking some bad guesses on shots. Colgate got a gift from Lehigh in terms of a blueprint on how to easily beat Bart. Maybe they won't watch the tape...

[Farfromgeneva]

I just don't understand Bach. He has all the physical tools. But the moment and an ssdm gives him a slight bump, he passes the ball. Teams now realize they don't have to aggressively defend him. Herlihy shooting 1 for 10 doesn't help. Through 2 games he is 3 for 20. 15% shooting as an attackman with the ball in his stick a lot isn't helping. Also still waiting to see the the excellent vision and passing by Greene that coached spoke about. We need an X attackman. Delano is doing a good job, just don't see him in the X role. Not sure if Peterkin is injured as he played in spots today. Today is a head scratcher. How did our defense leave so many guys open? It didn't help Sotiropoulos, though he did have a nice 3 quick saves in a row late. That still doesn't offset him taking some bad guesses on shots. Colgate got a gift from Lehigh in terms of a blueprint on how to easily beat Bart. Maybe they won't watch the tape...

What's bizarre is the D played the first 20 min or so like they did vs Bryant in the NEC semis last spring which means they know what they are supposed to do clearly. Firth and Duby were all over the field, Christansen was typical for his performance in general.

Short answer seems to be they gave up. Hate to think that and expect it won't happen again, but that's sure how it felt once lehigh tied it up.

Allowing a 13-2 run though...

[FMUBart]

When I say size, I mean more of what Cooper is saying - physicality. Height is irrelevant if you don’t bring the heat…plenty of smaller guys are physical, remember Smalley? Don’t know how tall Simas is, but he is physical and runs downhill. Alex Rosa’s dad was the toughest pound for pound player to ever play at Hobart—he was 5’10” and 195 but would lay the boom on much bigger guys and ran through checks. No more of the 5’8” 150lb guys unless they are cat quick and TOUGH, a la Ray Gilliam(look him up )

[SMAIN]

The team plays great the first half and then they don't . It seems as though the opponent does well the 2nd half and we become sloppy or look as though we don't care That's a sign of not being in shape. Lacrosse is the fastest game on two feet as we all know. If you are running out of gas you become sloppy etc. I'm sure the team spends a lot of time in the weight room..... that's easy. Running distance, sprints etc require more effort.
I would like to know the running program.

[oldbartman]

Coach Fisher is new to the program. He has been with the team long enough to know what he has to work with on the defensive end. Time outs were called and I didn't see any real adjustments made. That seems to be our M.O. It still isn't working

[Laxgunea]

I don't remember Simas being so big his first year. He's put on lots of muscle. Others could do that too. What hasn't changed in Simas is his hunger. Yes, he has always taken crazy shots, but lots of them go in, and he's become way more controlled through some good coaching. He's also the greatest inspiration out there. Quite a bit like Cooper in that way! We can rely on him for a spark, but he can't be the only one.
As I said in an earlier post, the first half shows what we can do. We took the game to Lehigh in the first quarter and a half: they relied on Sisselberger's talent, which didn't disappoint. But, look, despite his wins, we took possessions and scored. Our passing was fast, crisp, and when we saw opportunities, we took them. We completely dominated in 50/50 balls and turnovers. But by the end, Lehigh had the better statistics in both those areas.
Yes, I blame the D for the start of the let down, but the O also started playing what looked like a pick-up game. Both sides of the field got scattered, and looked scared. I agree with those who say it is mental: we took the foot off of the gas and tried to coast. That's never worked, and it will never work. Lacrosse is a game of rhythm, and we gave ours up. Kudos to Lehigh for adjusting, putting on their jockstraps, punching us in the face, and playing tough.

[Laxbuck]

7 violations called on Shea?

That’s gotta be on the Zebras…fogos figure out how to adapt to whistle, 7 violations is poor officiating, imho

Near universal dislike for the new FO mechanic/way it’s officiated

[Laxbuck]

We’re barely into the first year of A-10 play,

and already the intra-teams Two Minutes Hate has begun ??!!

Both NEC team followers as well. So little legacy.

I just don’t see pounding the drum and making an argument with like 7% of the facts at hand without asking or inquiring further.

Started with “you guys could get princeton grad students with more masters programs” ignoring that Princeton kids aren’t matriculating in grad programs at any a10 school for a fifth lacrosse year, none of them.

Then “look you lost Derrek madonna because of grad programs” not even knowing his younger brother was a starter at Richmond and that we had 12 fifth year graduate kids and a roster of 61 right now.

Then we’ll what about Stephen Dwyer, a kid form a program as a school we never lost to and is an institution completely different from Hobart. Using St Joes as an example where I know enough background to know we couldn’t have ever taken in Rastivo, Hayes McGinley or LaCalandria who was in discussions w SJU at one point before OSU showed up and he had his own issues at LIU where we historically don’t even pull that many kids from the last two decades. None of it made sense but kept pushing the same argument despite all these facts and datapoint.

Matt Kerwick would’ve gone down that path and that’s why he got fired from Hobart, Georgetown and Cornell and is out of lacrosse now.

FFG, you should not go picking fights, and I would especially not quibble with St. Joe's. They are going to finish in the Top 10 this year (that's my opinion anyway). Just focus on our team. That's enough.

Trying to correct bad information and suppositions driven off that.

Assuming every institution is the same and making an argument and tossing out bad examples is picking a fight to me. We’re shrinking our enrollment, rolling back the growth from the Gregory stretch so jamming in a athlete who has no other purpose on campus as suggested runs counter to the goals of the institution and Raymond’s stated interest in running the program. Would you prefer we roll out five new useless grad programs to waive in marginal students who we can rent for a year but potentially ruin the culture? I mean Jason Knox didn’t leave just because of competitive considerations. He brought down our 2021 season. You want him back knowing that?

Right now I’m setting up ESPN+ to watch the game at noon though.

None of what I said is untrue and I am well aware of all of the facts. I don’t know that Derek Madonna transferred to Richmond just because his brother is there. That may or may not be true. Richmond has a ton to offer academically and athletically. Your elitist attitude towards Hobart compared to other schools is pathetic. In your opinion, no one at Wagner, St. Joe’s or dozens of other schools are worthy of Hobart. In a landscape of grad transfers looking for a good combination of academics and lacrosse Hobart isn’t in the mix due to their inadequate grad programs. Their lacrosse program is good enough to attract some quality contributors.

[Farfromgeneva]

When I say size, I mean more of what Cooper is saying - physicality. Height is irrelevant if you don’t bring the heat…plenty of smaller guys are physical, remember Smalley? Don’t know how tall Simas is, but he is physical and runs downhill. Alex Rosa’s dad was the toughest pound for pound player to ever play at Hobart—he was 5’10” and 195 but would lay the boom on much bigger guys and ran through checks. No more of the 5’8” 150lb guys unless they are cat quick and TOUGH, a la Ray Gilliam(look him up )

Understood and then we’re all in agreement.

Yes Smalley would stand kiddies up who were much bigger, once or twice catching bogus roughness flags.

Yes Tom was an animal. He came and gave us a pregame speech before a football game or two back in the day and fired us all up.

[Farfromgeneva]

We’re barely into the first year of A-10 play,

and already the intra-teams Two Minutes Hate has begun ??!!

Both NEC team followers as well. So little legacy.

I just don’t see pounding the drum and making an argument with like 7% of the facts at hand without asking or inquiring further.

Started with “you guys could get princeton grad students with more masters programs” ignoring that Princeton kids aren’t matriculating in grad programs at any a10 school for a fifth lacrosse year, none of them.

Then “look you lost Derrek madonna because of grad programs” not even knowing his younger brother was a starter at Richmond and that we had 12 fifth year graduate kids and a roster of 61 right now.

Then we’ll what about Stephen Dwyer, a kid form a program as a school we never lost to and is an institution completely different from Hobart. Using St Joes as an example where I know enough background to know we couldn’t have ever taken in Rastivo, Hayes McGinley or LaCalandria who was in discussions w SJU at one point before OSU showed up and he had his own issues at LIU where we historically don’t even pull that many kids from the last two decades. None of it made sense but kept pushing the same argument despite all these facts and datapoint.

Matt Kerwick would’ve gone down that path and that’s why he got fired from Hobart, Georgetown and Cornell and is out of lacrosse now.

FFG, you should not go picking fights, and I would especially not quibble with St. Joe's. They are going to finish in the Top 10 this year (that's my opinion anyway). Just focus on our team. That's enough.

Trying to correct bad information and suppositions driven off that.

Assuming every institution is the same and making an argument and tossing out bad examples is picking a fight to me. We’re shrinking our enrollment, rolling back the growth from the Gregory stretch so jamming in a athlete who has no other purpose on campus as suggested runs counter to the goals of the institution and Raymond’s stated interest in running the program. Would you prefer we roll out five new useless grad programs to waive in marginal students who we can rent for a year but potentially ruin the culture? I mean Jason Knox didn’t leave just because of competitive considerations. He brought down our 2021 season. You want him back knowing that?

Right now I’m setting up ESPN+ to watch the game at noon though.

None of what I said is untrue and I am well aware of all of the facts. I don’t know that Derek Madonna transferred to Richmond just because his brother is there. That may or may not be true. Richmond has a ton to offer academically and athletically. Your elitist attitude towards Hobart compared to other schools is pathetic. In your opinion, no one at Wagner, St. Joe’s or dozens of other schools are worthy of Hobart. In a landscape of grad transfers looking for a good combination of academics and lacrosse Hobart isn’t in the mix due to their inadequate grad programs. Their lacrosse program is good enough to attract some quality contributors.

It’s true about Derrek I know a guy who’s friends with the family up in CNY and was in a boat on Skaneateles with him last summer visiting upstate NY.

Your facts lack logic in the analysis and assumptions and allegations made. You clearly don’t know the history of the institution or the delicate balance that exists between the program and the rest of the institution.

It’s not about being worthy its about aligning interests and vision. I didn’t say that Hobart was better but that our vision for the You didn’t care to read or ask just made assumptions and laid arguments that make no sense and had the hubris to assume you knew better than everyone here inclduing others who tell you we don’t take in many transfers and never have. St Joes has no problem doing it that’s fine but it’s not what Hobart wants. That’s a choice that should be respected. You came in here and made claims without knowledge and without asking. That’s not on me or anyone here but on you. It’s elitist to respect what a administration and a coach wants for the program. That’s what you are saying. I don’t care. I’m not on St Joes thread pulling that about your sons school. Think about that when you’re calling someone else elitist. How about some modesty and less ASSumptions?

I’m fully aware of what Hobart is and it isn’t. We’ve lost kids last second of recommits to Yale, Boston U and Dartmouth plus other schools in the last decade because kids trade up (Reeves, Jack Wilson and Cody George to name a few). But they don’t just waive in a kid because he’s available. Coach Raymond has said he wants four years players publicly for years. But we’re all the aholes because we don’t set up weak graduates programs to rent fifth year kids?

[BigHoss]

I agree with what you’re saying in some regards. I just think reality needs to be set in place as well. It’s a great school, but because we haven’t looked into taking on transfers to help our team improve, we haven’t won a ton. Everyone else has and they have succeeded. St Joes passed us so your philosophy is fine, but you have to be able to accept that realistically this roster we have likely won’t be beating them either.

[Farfromgeneva]

I agree with what you’re saying in some regards. I just think reality needs to be set in place as well. It’s a great school, but because we haven’t looked into taking on transfers to help our team improve, we haven’t won a ton. Everyone else has and they have succeeded. St Joes passed us so your philosophy is fine, but you have to be able to accept that realistically this roster we have likely won’t be beating them either.

And I’m ok with that as long as the coaches are doing their job to the best of their ability and the kids aren’t quitting in the second half of games.

My time was the tail end of the horrific Dick Hersh years that was a de facto police state and into Gearans wildly overrated tenure and I stayed very close to the institution through the 2000s financially and personally/time commitment actively engaged as an alum. Dealt with the blowback from Maddux, then Thets and Kappa Sigma brawling culminating in Darin Bish being thrown out as a senior for nearly killing Scott Morton who punched Bish’s girlfriend in the face and both frats getting blown out along with most of the rest of the Greek system being put out to pasture. The sloppy firing of BJ OHara by Hanna leading to burned bridges in CNY. Kerwick era had a little success but massive attrition that impacted the schools year to year planning (being off on yield by 20 kids is a $1mm operating budget hole for an endowment that didn’t grow for 20yrs leading to us slipping 20-30 spots in USNWR). The aforementioned Kimber situation, attempt to move back to D3, the NCAA violations for administrative screw up on filing paperwork. The NYT hatchet job around the “Anna” assault. President Vincent being run off by a parochial and overempoweered faculty because they didn’t like how he was professionalize for the place. Then Jacobsen up and quits a few years in. We went cheap on the bubble SNF the thing deflated. Hanna did the Boz renovations with less than 20% funded. The fact that’s where had any success at all the last twenty years in spite of all
The toes we’ve shot off our own feet internally is kind of amazing when you think about it.

DeWall and Raymond have sold stability to the school. They sell an image whether it even is real or not (see the FB team leading the LL in penalties by a mile for years now, lot of 15 yarders is the norm) of stability and discipline. Lacrosse is ingrained in the culture. The risk and cost of taking on one wrong transfer is far greater than the value of a marginal 1st round playoff loss or two. The short list around Raymond included Corrado, Seremet and Fedorjaka-the latter two are excellent but came with baggage which along with Hanna wanting to pick the coach before he left made Raymond the obvious choice in hindsight.

Would I love to waive in random kids for a year and have more success? Sure. But not at any cost.

We can do better with what we’ve got. Scholarships may help though losing two sport players is a loss over time (if a dollar of athletic aid touches a lacrosse player they can’t play another sport that’s D3). I love the place despite all of the above and can list five things that are great about the school for every problem. I believe in hard work not shortcuts. I believe in our status in the history of the game and I believe that we can be better than we’ve been since the early-mid 2000s. I don’t believe in winning at any cost for a two hundred year old institution surrounded by schools that could very easily fail including Hartwick and Elmira within 100mi and NE demographics posing massive challenges to all private colleges in the regions. It’s still a small part of life and i and the people I have been around at HWS were taught to “tell the other team the players were going to run and out execute” not look for shortcuts and information asymmetry. I stand by all of that.

And as critical as I’ve been at times, totally disappointed by the game today, note I’m trying to find silver linings to build on for the rest of the season. I expected an L on this game honestly going into the season. Lehigh could be a top 15 team this year though I thought they’re stick skills and ball handling were not great and they rely on one on one way too much. What made it disappointing is the fact that we showed flashes of brilliance and more or less dominated them all over the field the first 20 min. Even their first four goals at 10-4 in Q2 included two EMOs and a LSM goal. One EMO goal was a rebound score (a massive problem we are going to have all season with LK in goal, he flips and is overactive which looks good at times and he’s athletic but is out of position if he doesn’t make a clean save like every single time). They couldn’t do a thing against us in 6 on 6. And that one dude danced wayyy too much for them like he was rocking at the Apollo theatre.

As far as beating anyone on the schedule while I may mentally prepare for Ls, I concede nothing. No point in competing if we did.

[Farfromgeneva]

What would happen to the colleges if Abby Johnson donated 1/2 of 1% of her net worth? She’s worth $15Bn and has given to my knowledge like less than $10mm or thereabouts. Doesn’t matter if it’s in kind & illiquid, private stock is still an warning asset to be leveraged.