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Gotham Lacrosse League – NYC

The Gotham Lacrosse League  got off to a hot start on Tuesday, June 8th at 7pm.  The Southampton Brewery LC took on Bear Stearns/Bank of America, which featured a large contingent of recent Middlebury grads like Mike Murray and Tom Petty as well as a solid smattering of top level D1 players representing the likes of Johns Hopkins, UDelaware and UAlbany

BofA takes it to the hopper against Southampton's Rory Baldini

Southampton had made some upgrades in the off season adding a number of UMass and Duke recent grads (and in Duke’s case, some recent National Champs!), like Evan Blum (UMass), Tom Montelli (Duke) and Sam Spillane (Duke), but it wasn’t enough to beat Bear/BofA and Southampton fell 4-3.  It was plain to see that about half of the guys on the field (mostly the younger guys) had been playing regularly and the other half (this is where I fall) hadn’t played any real lax in months.  There were some dropped passes but that’s to be expected and overall the quality of play was quite good.

Southampton on D... again. Donny Morrison came up huge in the net with 10 second half saves

Southampton switched it up this year opting for blue jerseys instead of orange and next week when we give out the new plaid team shorts that StrikerDanger put together for us, we’ll be looking good and maybe that will be the difference maker.  We also ordered plaid mohawk and visor stickers so we should be looking tight from head to toe.

Christian only brought the new plaid shorts for himself this week so he decided to make up for it by losing every face off he took.

I rocked the new pink traditional pocket in my Nike Legacy and it throws like a charm and has great hold on the ball.  Other than the fact that they just don’t know how to string traditional, I can not figure out why more people don’t use it in their sticks.  Mesh does not even come close to a good traddy stick and I would HIGHLY recommend learning how to string this summer if you don’t know how already.  You know you ain’t got no job!

From a purely personal POV, My overall play in the game was decent I guess, took one shot that went high after a successful clear, and most importantly, I learned that I definitely need to wear cleats next week.  The field turf is great but my Nike LT Turf shoes did slip out from underneath me a couple of times and I then looked a bit old and foolish. 

I got a demo pair of Nike Huraches  from their Blue Chip Camp sent to me by Nike so I’m going to try those out this weekend when I play with Southampton in the Long Island War on the Shore tourney out East in Mattituck and I’m sure I’ll use them in Gotham in upcoming weeks as well.  I’d love to try out some of the new cleats from Nike, Reebok, Adidas and UnderArmour… all 4 are putting out good looking product right now.

In other action Teamitup.com took on the purple clad Barclay’s team and there were more Ivy League helmets than you could shake a lacrosse stick at.  Barclay’s had a number of Harvard and Penn players on the roster while Teamitup featured guys from Rutgers, Penn State and Stony Brook.  Teamitup took home the win in this first week game.

Teamitup(grey) vs Barclays(purple) for the 830pm game

Morgan Stanley played Gold Prop with GP coming out on top and Team Adeona faced off against a loaded Credit Suisse squad where the bankers from CS emerged victorious.  I played against Adeona last year as well as this past Winter down in New Orleans.  The team is mostly Ivy League alums featuring guys like Doug Faron (Brown) and Grant Hewitt (Princeton) and there is a service component to their team.  They do a lot of fundraising and volunteer work and really deserve to be recognized for their dedication to serving others.

Credit Suisse is loaded with recent college stars like Billy Bitter, Gavin Petraca, Colin Finnerty and Max Quinzani and if these guys are showing up every week, their skill sets and their youthful athleticism will cause a lot of problems for almost every other team in the league.  Most teams have a couple of guys that can really run but Credit Suisse is looking like they have the most athletic front line in recent memory.

For state, wins and losses and schedules, go to Gotham’s website, www.gothamlacrosse.com, or just click here.  The site will be updated every week with rosters, stats and standings.  You’ll have to come back here for the pictures though.  We’ll be covering this league all summer and letting you know how the action shakes out.

More Teamitup/Barlcay's action. This was the last decent picture before it got too dark. My camera does not like Dusk at all.

If you look down the rosters on the Gotham homepage, you’ll see a lot of names that you’ll recognize from some of the top D1, D2 and D3 teams of recent years.  I’d love to see more  top level players from the MCLA in the league but in order to do that, they have to move to NYC and then actually stay here!

Perfect NYC summer weather, a great sponsor in Maverik and two field turf style playing surfaces make this a good league.  The quality of the players elevates things and it makes this a great league, andquite  possibly the best summer lacrosse in the country outside of the MLL and major tournaments like Lake Placid or Vail.

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About the Author: Connor is a life-long lacrosse player who doesn’t know when to give up on the game. He played and coached at Wesleyan University and now plays for the Southampton LC in NYC. Connor lives with his fiance in Brooklyn and thanks her for allowing him to keep the dream alive.

Contact him at connor@lacrosseallstars.com.