LaxPower Back-Up Stick

Catbird wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 2:07 pm Really hoping DeSimone comes back next year, he's been unleashed. Throwing bounce passes, that high bounce shot off the turf from the point (circa Dudley Dixon 1997)... Kid is having fun out there.

I really hope he hangs around as well. This years version is the Connor I had been hoping to see at Homewood ever since I saw his Youtube recruiting highlight tape like 6 years ago.

jrn19 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 2:37 pm

random observer wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 1:34 pm

jrn19 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 12:55 pm

flalax22 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 11:40 am

Sagittarius A* wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 10:05 am

HopFan16 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 9:13 am
Playing their best lacrosse of the season right now. Might not be enough to pull off the upset on Thursday but if ever there were a time for one...

If Marcille can save ~55% and Narewsky can win ~60% of the draws, the Jays have a chance.
The postseason is mostly about face-offs and goaltending.
Unlike Penn State though, there's no one guy like OKeefe that you can shut down and curtail their offense.
The Jays will have to play some serious team defense to pull off the upset. Let's hope Rutgers comes in overconfident...

This is exactly why the Jays have a shot here. Goaltending appears to have stabilized and they have a face-off tandem with Narewski and Dunn who can hang with anyone.

As for Cole, short of leading the Jays to the NCAA tournament I believe he is symbolic of what has been wrong with the program the last decade. Extremely talented player but has he really developed into what we thought he would be? I don’t remember his IL ranking but it was up there, All American in High School, MVP of the UA AA game. So many predicted he was the second coming of Terry O’Riordan. Too often inconsistent play, too often he hangs onto the ball far too long. When he plays like last weekend I just wonder what prevents him for putting that out every game or more often. It’s not like he’s drawing the top defender game in and game out.

He was never an AA guy and thus if you consider his HS ranking of #6 you’d consider him a disappointment. But look at the 3 names behind him. Joey Manown, William Perry, Brian Willetts. He’s better than Manown was. Perry is an All-American this year but UNC fans were saying similar things about him and some of their other guys as you guys do about Williams before Chris Gray arrived on campus. Willetts...don’t think he ever amounted to much more than a serviceable body. Of course, #10 that year was Michael Sowers but not everyone is Michael Sowers. You look at the Top 20 that year and there’s a lot of Duke guys who wound up being just okay. It was a year with 3 perennial All-American guys (Teat, Bernhardt, Sowers) but then a lot of good players and Williams was at the top end of that group

Perry was a 20+ goal, 30+ point guy from the midfield even before Gray got there. He mostly delivered from day one. Williams did better than Willetts & Manown for sure, but the guys above him became stars, and there are a number of attack men behind him in the top 25 and top 50 that became all-time greats; Kraus, Morrill, Tierney, O'Keefe to name a few. This is all to say Cole has been a victim of being a decent player in an absolutely loaded class, which is somewhat out of his control. I thought #6 was too high a rating at the time, and it's borne out to be true. But he's been a solid player when judged on his own merits, and certainly not a "miss" like a lot of other highly touted guys have been over the years.

Perry Year 1: 14 G, 4 A, 18 points, 28 GB, 32% shooter, 1.1 PPG
Williams Year 1: 6 G, 4 A, 10 points, 19% shooter, 0.6 PPG

Perry Year 2: 22 G, 9 A, 31 points, 17 GB, 26% shooter, 2.2 PPG
Williams Year 2: 35 G, 14 assists, 49 points, 19 GB 27% shooter, 2.9 PPG

Perry Year 3: 26 G, 6 A, 32 points, 13 GB, 27% shooter, 2.1 PPG
Williams Year 3: 27 G, 19 A, 46 points, 23 GB, 26% shooter, 2.9 PPG

Perry Year 4: 8 G, 4 A, 12 points, 3 GB, 23.5% shooter, 1.7 PPG
Williams Year 4: 11 G, 6 A, 17 points, 14 GB, 25% shooter, 2.8 PPG

Perry Year 5: 25 G, 9 A, 34 points, 10 GB, 41% shooter, 2.8 PPG
Williams Year 5: 22 G, 10 A, 32 points, 10 GB 39% shooter, 2.9 PPG

Obviously Williams has a bump in PPG from being an attackmen compared to Perry as a midfielder; but I think the #'s bear out they were both good players at their positions relative to the country for most of their careers until this year when Perry jumps 14% in sh% from his previous best and 0.6 in PPG from previous career best. Playing on the best offense in the country.

I don't know if I'd call Kraus, Morrill, and especially Tierney "all-time greats." Kraus was elite and Morrill's been very good, but Kraus also played with Matt Moore and Ryan Conrad and Dox Aitken. Morrill played with Ben Reeves for a couple of years. Williams didn't have that talent around him for most of his Hopkins career

Also didn't help that he had to play out of position his freshman year and had Marr as the primary lefty for his first 3 years.

Chitown wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 1:36 pm Re Cole Williams' performance, just maybe the JHU coaching this year is better than in the past Same re Connor DiSimone's performance.

That’s absolutely possible. I’m saying I’ve seen these “great” performances out of Cole periodically and then he disappears for a few games. I’m hopeful he dominates the next two and puts the Jays in the tourney.

Some simple Happy Hour thoughts from the Penn St Game:

- Goalie problem seems to be solved. That was one of the best performances I’ve seen by a Blue Jay goalie in quite some time. Looked calm, composed and confident in net. 67% save percentage is one of the highest they have seen in a significant game in quite some time.

- They need DeSimone back next year. Period. He’s the glue guy on that attack unit. I still think Epstein at his best is the most talented player on the field, but DeSimone has proven to be Mr Reliable this year and his confidence is through the roof.

- Second midfield all registered at least a point each. All freshman line. Very encouraging seeing those young men start to develop.

- 11 caused turnovers for the defense. They’re playing more aggressive and it’s showing on the stat sheet.

- Overall they looked like they were having fun out there. You could see it in the body language of the team. Confidence was there and that’s so important with this young team/coaching staff. They’re obviously a long way off from where they can be, but definitely a step in the right direction last week. Let’s finally get over the hump and beat Rutgers. #wewantmore

HappyHourLax wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:38 pm - Goalie problem seems to be solved. That was one of the best performances I’ve seen by a Blue Jay goalie in quite some time. Looked calm, composed and confident in net. 67% save percentage is one of the highest they have seen in a significant game in quite some time.

Folks keep saying that, and the optimism is great.

But Penn St. averages around 10 goals a game, which puts them as the #42 offense in the nation. Both the Rutgers goalie (twice) and the UMd goalie (twice) was 60%+ save percentage against PSU shooters.

Maybe wait until they play a couple of top offenses before setting unrealistic expectations......

Just a thought. Rutgers will help tell the story. I hope he goes 60%+ on them, too.

jrn19 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 2:37 pm

random observer wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 1:34 pm

jrn19 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 12:55 pm

flalax22 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 11:40 am

Sagittarius A* wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 10:05 am

HopFan16 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 9:13 am
Playing their best lacrosse of the season right now. Might not be enough to pull off the upset on Thursday but if ever there were a time for one...

If Marcille can save ~55% and Narewsky can win ~60% of the draws, the Jays have a chance.
The postseason is mostly about face-offs and goaltending.
Unlike Penn State though, there's no one guy like OKeefe that you can shut down and curtail their offense.
The Jays will have to play some serious team defense to pull off the upset. Let's hope Rutgers comes in overconfident...

This is exactly why the Jays have a shot here. Goaltending appears to have stabilized and they have a face-off tandem with Narewski and Dunn who can hang with anyone.

As for Cole, short of leading the Jays to the NCAA tournament I believe he is symbolic of what has been wrong with the program the last decade. Extremely talented player but has he really developed into what we thought he would be? I don’t remember his IL ranking but it was up there, All American in High School, MVP of the UA AA game. So many predicted he was the second coming of Terry O’Riordan. Too often inconsistent play, too often he hangs onto the ball far too long. When he plays like last weekend I just wonder what prevents him for putting that out every game or more often. It’s not like he’s drawing the top defender game in and game out.

He was never an AA guy and thus if you consider his HS ranking of #6 you’d consider him a disappointment. But look at the 3 names behind him. Joey Manown, William Perry, Brian Willetts. He’s better than Manown was. Perry is an All-American this year but UNC fans were saying similar things about him and some of their other guys as you guys do about Williams before Chris Gray arrived on campus. Willetts...don’t think he ever amounted to much more than a serviceable body. Of course, #10 that year was Michael Sowers but not everyone is Michael Sowers. You look at the Top 20 that year and there’s a lot of Duke guys who wound up being just okay. It was a year with 3 perennial All-American guys (Teat, Bernhardt, Sowers) but then a lot of good players and Williams was at the top end of that group

Perry was a 20+ goal, 30+ point guy from the midfield even before Gray got there. He mostly delivered from day one. Williams did better than Willetts & Manown for sure, but the guys above him became stars, and there are a number of attack men behind him in the top 25 and top 50 that became all-time greats; Kraus, Morrill, Tierney, O'Keefe to name a few. This is all to say Cole has been a victim of being a decent player in an absolutely loaded class, which is somewhat out of his control. I thought #6 was too high a rating at the time, and it's borne out to be true. But he's been a solid player when judged on his own merits, and certainly not a "miss" like a lot of other highly touted guys have been over the years.

Perry Year 1: 14 G, 4 A, 18 points, 28 GB, 32% shooter, 1.1 PPG
Williams Year 1: 6 G, 4 A, 10 points, 19% shooter, 0.6 PPG

Perry Year 2: 22 G, 9 A, 31 points, 17 GB, 26% shooter, 2.2 PPG
Williams Year 2: 35 G, 14 assists, 49 points, 19 GB 27% shooter, 2.9 PPG

Perry Year 3: 26 G, 6 A, 32 points, 13 GB, 27% shooter, 2.1 PPG
Williams Year 3: 27 G, 19 A, 46 points, 23 GB, 26% shooter, 2.9 PPG

Perry Year 4: 8 G, 4 A, 12 points, 3 GB, 23.5% shooter, 1.7 PPG
Williams Year 4: 11 G, 6 A, 17 points, 14 GB, 25% shooter, 2.8 PPG

Perry Year 5: 25 G, 9 A, 34 points, 10 GB, 41% shooter, 2.8 PPG
Williams Year 5: 22 G, 10 A, 32 points, 10 GB 39% shooter, 2.9 PPG

Obviously Williams has a bump in PPG from being an attackmen compared to Perry as a midfielder; but I think the #'s bear out they were both good players at their positions relative to the country for most of their careers until this year when Perry jumps 14% in sh% from his previous best and 0.6 in PPG from previous career best. Playing on the best offense in the country.

I don't know if I'd call Kraus, Morrill, and especially Tierney "all-time greats." Kraus was elite and Morrill's been very good, but Kraus also played with Matt Moore and Ryan Conrad and Dox Aitken. Morrill played with Ben Reeves for a couple of years. Williams didn't have that talent around him for most of his Hopkins career

The Perry and Williams comparison should begin and end with your caveat that Williams was playing attack; a 30-35 point midfielder is IMO considerably more valuable than a 45-50 pt attack man. And Perry was putting up those numbers on a team that was getting nothing out of its attack unit; he very nearly led the Heels in points in 2019.

Tierney is Hofstra and the CAA's all-time leading scorer. Morrill is #2 all-time in scoring at Yale. At the very least they would be all-time "program" greats, if not quite qualifying for such consideration across the D1 landscape. If COVID had not happened, Kraus would have been UVA's all-time leading scorer; I would consider him someone who has been overlooked by the lacrosse world at large relative to his level of production. And yes there were other great players on those UVA teams, but lost in all of the attention thrown on Moore is that Kraus still drew the #1 pole every game on that championship team, and still had more PPG than Moore whilst battling through injuries (he missed 3-4 games with injuries, which cost him the single season scoring mark). Your point is still apt that Williams has not been put in the best position to succeed, but I think it's more than fair to say that guys like Tierney, Morrill, and especially Kraus distinguished themselves as being on a higher tier.

a fan wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:50 pm

HappyHourLax wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:38 pm - Goalie problem seems to be solved. That was one of the best performances I’ve seen by a Blue Jay goalie in quite some time. Looked calm, composed and confident in net. 67% save percentage is one of the highest they have seen in a significant game in quite some time.

Folks keep saying that, and the optimism is great.

But Penn St. averages around 10 goals a game, which puts them as the #42 offense in the nation. Both the Rutgers goalie (twice) and the UMd goalie (twice) was 60%+ save percentage against PSU shooters.

Maybe wait until they play a couple of top offenses before setting unrealistic expectations......

Just a thought. Rutgers will help tell the story. I hope he goes 60%+ on them, too.

Really enjoyed watching this past game, and #10 in goal! I don't think anyone is saying he's the next best goalie in college lacrosse, just that he's putting up the performances needed and somewhat expected. 67% against any team is good! And I think the point is, JHU received a 45% performance in their previous loss to Penn State and a combined 38% in the loss to Michigan. Even with his below 50% effort against Maryland, I remember at the end of the first quarter he came up with 3 really strong saves that kept it a 4 goal difference instead of a 7, in addition to a number of other key saves during that game.

Good luck Thursday, will be rooting for the Jays!

a fan wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:50 pm

HappyHourLax wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:38 pm - Goalie problem seems to be solved. That was one of the best performances I’ve seen by a Blue Jay goalie in quite some time. Looked calm, composed and confident in net. 67% save percentage is one of the highest they have seen in a significant game in quite some time.

Folks keep saying that, and the optimism is great.

But Penn St. averages around 10 goals a game, which puts them as the #42 offense in the nation. Both the Rutgers goalie (twice) and the UMd goalie (twice) was 60%+ save percentage against PSU shooters.

Maybe wait until they play a couple of top offenses before setting unrealistic expectations......

Just a thought. Rutgers will help tell the story. I hope he goes 60%+ on them, too.

First, the UMD goalie is playing behind the UMD defense, so you expect more of the shots he faces to be saveable.

But if the Jays can equal Kirst in goal on Thursday night, that goes a long way towards evening the contest.

44WeWantMore wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 7:05 pm First, the UMD goalie is playing behind the UMD defense, so you expect more of the shots he faces to be saveable.

But if the Jays can equal Kirst in goal on Thursday night, that goes a long way towards evening the contest.

I agree on both points. I'm simply saying, maybe wait and see how he does against tougher competition before loading the kid up with expectations.

I'm glad that people noticed cole williams scores goals
maybe they also noticed
penn state 3-1 run to start the game
maryland 5-1 run to start the game, 3-0 run to finish
rutgers 4-1 run to start, 8-1 run to finish
ohio state 8-3 run to start, 4-2 to finish
michigan 10-5 run to finish
rutgers 11-2 run to finish
maryland 13-2 run to finish

3 points a game makes for happy fantasy owners, but it's a 60 minute game and too many of those runs were related to empty offensive possessions, poor shooting, turnovers, missed gbs, penalties and weren't matched punch for punch.

The team did a lot of good things on Saturday. They should be congratulated on fighting through. They could have easily folded up a few weeks ago. Also congrats to Millman to seeing some changes needed to be made (particularly at goalie).

Given what the program has had to go through the last 18 months - COVID, coaching change, no fall ball, etc. the best thing for the players is that they get to play another game. If they win that game, they play another. They really have nothing to lose at this point. Maybe a regular season would have allowed them to be in conversation of tournament. Hopkins would have been 2-3 in B1G this year (only counting the results of the 1st game). Going 6-4 over the rest of the games (figuring a typical game schedule of teams like SU, UNC, Loyola, Navy, etc.) would put the team at 8-7. They would have made the B1G tournament in a regular year. With one win in the B1G tournament they probably make the NCAAs.

But, this isn't a normal year, so they should be commended in persevering.

Also to pump the breaks. Marcille has played 2 full games. He has no doubt looked better in goal then anyone Hopkins has had there for years. I hope he keeps it up because having a goalie stop the shots he should goes a long way to building a defense. Defensive players play much better and don't get out of position when they know the goalie can stop the shots he should and then stops some shots he shouldn't.

So Congrats to them and I would consider this season without a doubt a success. though I am sure others will think otherwise.

We are on to Rutgers!

steel_hop wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 8:55 am The team did a lot of good things on Saturday. They should be congratulated on fighting through. They could have easily folded up a few weeks ago. Also congrats to Millman to seeing some changes needed to be made (particularly at goalie).

We are on to Rutgers!

That was a big change and it flipped the narrative of the season from a downward slope to an upward one in the last few games.
Even if they don't pull off the upset Thursday, it does look like this is a group that could do good things in the future.
The other positive is that the shooting and ball security seems to have improved. Players are making better decisions.
Milliman deserves credit for taking some big risks and righting the ship.

be honest. most of you guys think there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 50/50 that a 3 and 8 hopkins wins against an 8 and 2 b1g-only-rutgers.

wgdsr wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 2:46 pm be honest. most of you guys think there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 50/50 that a 3 and 8 hopkins wins against an 8 and 2 b1g-only-rutgers.

I wouldn't put it at 50/50 (Rutgers is definitely the better and more "experienced" team this year), but it also wouldn't be completely unepected for Hop to win. Both of the previous 2 games were competitive, with GK being the big difference in both. If Hop gets good GK and limits turnovers, they could win.

wgdsr wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 2:46 pm be honest. most of you guys think there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 50/50 that a 3 and 8 hopkins wins against an 8 and 2 b1g-only-rutgers.

So you are telling me there is a chance? (that's all I ask)

wgdsr wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 2:46 pm be honest. most of you guys think there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 50/50 that a 3 and 8 hopkins wins against an 8 and 2 b1g-only-rutgers.

If it were 50/50, then it would not be an upset, would it?

Lax Reference has it 74/26 Rutgers FWIW. So it’d be a good sized upset but not a complete shocker or upset of the season or anything.

That’s why they play the games...

Hopkins' performance against Maryland and win over Penn State tells me they are capable of beating any Big 10 team with some luck. I would say Rutgers in the 55 to 45 range. They should be favored, but it's hard to beat the same team three times in a season, and the Hopkins team that will play this week is better than the Hopkins team that Rutgers has beaten twice.

I have a few end of season thoughts to close out the year. I’m not saying Thursday will be the end. Hope not. But I have a few things to say before we move onto 2022:

First: This season has been both a gift and a blessing. W-L record aside, I’m very glad that the team, staff and parents got to enjoy a nearly full season, and safely. And I’m glad that the fans got to experience it in some form or fashion: through TV coverage, YouTube, here at FanLax, and by some of you persistent bastards who got tickets somehow or went to some of the away games like Rutgers. Good for you.

I’ll add second, third and fourth.. thoughts in future days.

I can’t add anymore at the moment. A triple shot of Barenjager on an empty stomach wasn’t a good idea. Damn near instant migraine.

W