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Devious Video Recap: Cornell vs. Princeton

Let’s eat some Ivy. Together.

I have been to Cornell and I have been to Princeton, As far as Ivy goes, Cornell doesn’t have a speck of it, but Princeton s covered in the ratty vines of worldliness.  Edge: Cornell.

If you want to matriculate with scraggly vines covering your buildings instead of hot coeds, go to Princeton.  Plus; quaint and homey Upstate NY > decayed and perilous streets of NJ.

Speaking of quaint and perilous, Quint is calling the game! Yay, Quint!

Key match ups?  No, let’s watch Tyler Fiorito warm up for two minutes.  I’m going to rewind and count how many shots he took during the intro.

Ten.

They had Fiorito on screen getting shot on ten times.  That’s the best B-roll ESPNU can come up with?  That’s like Bret Ratner B-roll.  And talk about a BS stat from Q: Fiorito’s save percentage in the first 6 games: 45%; last six games: 64% in the last six games.

Yeah, I’m sure Cad Weird-namer is the only reason his shot percentage went up.  It’s not because they played Harvard, Dartmouth, Rutgers, Yale, and Brown for five of those games (all defensive teams by the way) and Syracuse to round out the six.  I’m sure Fiorito’s shot percentage was GREAT for that 13-4 curb stomping.

See, this is my problem with media in lacrosse.  It’s like one conjured stat after another over and over again.

You know why MLL players and coaches hate me?  I give “dark stats” to readers.  What’s a dark stat?  I’ll give you an example.  Say a player scores five goals in a game.  That’s a pretty good game, right?  I mean, five goals – WOW! Now what if I told you that player had to shoot 30 times to get those five goals AND he turned the ball over seven times as well?  Well, those are dark stats. You learn to appreciate those by being a coach and watching tape – not wearing a suit.

Cornell wins the face-off because their FOGO is a “stud” face-off man.  I put “stud” in quotes because face-off guys aren’t ever studs.  They’re just called that because no one else has another name for “big guy that can’t run but has fast hands”.

Football Fogo.

Cornell in a high-low 1-4-1 with the left wing man rotating back to crease with the ball turning it into a 2-2-2.  Oh, these wily offenses.  Whatever.

Cornell scores off of an iso from David Lau who draws three defenders and no-look dumps to Chris Ritchie who gets off a very nice high to low stick on Fiorito.  1-0 Big Red.

Cornell gets the ball back again and looks frenzied in their set.  Guys are just running everywhere, but it works out for Ryan Hurley who benefits from a horrible over-the-head check followed by a pansy slide from the crease.  I miss Princeton defense.

Princeton’s first look on O is a 1-3-2 spread very wide.  Princeton doesn’t have any skilled dodgers besides Chanenchuk; they’re going to need some serious off-ball movement to get goals in this game.  Or they could just turn the ball over.

Cornell gets an easy goal from David Lau who basically runs past his guy at X and scores low on Fiorito.  No help D, no slide, down 3-0.  This is a very Jeckel and Hyde team, Tigers fans – they can’t be easy to watch game in, game out.

The best thing about Rob Pannell is that he just throws his butt into his defender and backs him in like a power forward.  He’s like 5’ 8’’ and he posts up.  Like a guy who played center in middle school and won championships, but then everyone else grew and he had to play point guard even though he couldn’t dribble because everyone else was 6’ 4’’.

Oh, no wait, that was me. (My stat line for the fifth grade Henniker hawks: 2.8 ppg, 3.2 assists pg, 5.1 blocks pg, 4.3 fouls pg, 78% on free throws – 1 regional championship).

Oh no.  No.  I think the Tigers’ Long Ellis just killed Cornell’s Ross Gillum.  It’s one of those hits you only see coming on tape about five seconds before it happens.  The defender just anticipates the pass and can’t get there to pick it so he takes a chance on the recipient turning his head to snag the ball and it pays off.  And by pays off I mean annihilates said ball carrier.

Wait his name is Long Ellis?  Long…is a name?  I thought it was an adjective.

(Yeah, you thought I was going to make a dirty joke there didn’t you?  Well guess what, grammar joke, all up in your face. You like that?  Huh? Shut up.)

Cornell man up, what will we have here?  Rotating 3-3 into a 2-3-1 with a sneak from X.  Bad shots, bad ride. Princeton kills it easily.

Wow.  Dirty Face dodge from Cornell’s Roy Lang and it’s ANOTHER goal for Cornell.  Princeton’s D is just not impressing me.  You know what else doesn’t impress me?  ESPNU’s melts and graphics.

Hey, ESPNU, are you telling me that you had the entire name graphics prepared for the Army/Navy game, but NONE of the names for THIS game?  Figure it out.  I might be the only guy that’s noticing (or caring) but show some hustle out there.

Cornell has a lot of holes to exploit off of picks but Princeton can’t make the pass.  Now Princeton is standing around…with a shortstick match up waiting for the ball behind the cage.  Turnover.

And we have our first referee mistake of the game. Inadvertent whistle for Princeton being offsides while Cornell was breaking.  Wow.  What a joke.  You suck.

Half of Cornell’s midfielders carry their sticks like briefcases.  Why don’t you pressure those guys?

Hey, that Gillum guy isn’t dead; he just can’t catch anything and keeps looking for his “precious”.  I’m sure he’s fine.

Too soon?

Quint is telling kids to go to their dram college’s camps.  I can’t say that I disagree, but don’t expect that coach to be there by the time you can get recruited.  You could end up at VMI or something.

Slow start to the second quarter.  I don’t know if you noticed but you just read 1,000 words on one quarter of play.  Look, the Devious Video Recap has a mind of it’s own.  Word counts mean nothing to me.

Princeton finally gets on the board with a goal from my boy Mike Chanenchuk.  I don’t see why he doesn’t get more plays called for him.  He’s fast; he’s their best dodger and can shoot on the run.  Is that not the perfect midfielder?  Wouldn’t you want to clone him and have a line of Chanenchuks just running around the entire game?  Is that what that movie “Splice” is about?  Or is that a chick – because honestly I can’t tell.

Is that supposed to be scary?  Like, ethically?  The tag line for this movie is: “Look we made a life form that is dangerous like cancer but we can’t kill it because we made it in a lab and it has feelings.”

Yeah, I saw that movie already it was called “Species” and it caused me to immediately hit puberty.  Thank you, Natasha Henstridge.  Thank you.

I know this picture is from “Species 2”, but so did you. Who’s the perv now?

Oh my god.  One official calls a man in the crease for Princeton and another ref throws a flag AFTER the call is made.  Hey kids, if you want to be a ref, just make bad calls and you too can be a star!

I don’t get all the hype on this Wiedmaier kid.  Like, yeah he’s fast for a big guy and throws some wood, but he barely recovers in tie to throw GOOD checks.  The stat they threw up before the game was that he had 12 caused turnovers.  In six games.  I GUESS that’s good.  Considering half the SID minions in D1 lacrosse don’t even keep that stat.

Soft and fuzzy goal for Princeton’s Jeff Frocarro.  Pierce Derkac slipped on some New Jersey hair gel and Frocarro bounced it home from far out. 5-2, now and another Warrior Pro Session!

Nick Polanco showing holds is not only apt, it’s telling.  This guy hasn’t used a hold since 2003.  He slaps more than a Mexican telenovella.  Or Batman.

Not cool, Robin.

I blame Fiorito’s poor first quarter on his stick choice.  He’s using a Void.  Come on, man. Kids look up to you.

After a long scrum at midfield, Princeton longpole John Cunningham takes a bid from a few steps into the box and scores low cheese.  Princeton making a comeback on Cornell,? Cornell is NOT a team that is equipped to make comebacks themselves so they need to keep Princeton at bay or they are in trouble.

The refs ruin another break to end the half.  Unbelievable.  Never mind the fact that Wiedmaier cracked Pannell in the face to start the play.

Chris McBride gets lit up and Quint is screaming for a helmet-to-helmet call.  I sort of doubt it, Q.   Helmets will touch when hits come from the side.  It’s not spearing in that instance.  But I do think you should button all four points on your chinstrap.  Not for safety, but because only having three makes you look like a douchebag.

Cornell scores their first goal for the last 20 minutes and pads their lead just a bit.  Ryan Hurley on the strike from a break that was not stopped by bad refs.  6-3 Reds.

Another Princeton offsides call negated by a goal from Steve Mock off of a double feed.  Pannell to Hurley to Mock.  I’d like to officially campaign for hockey assists to count as lacrosse assists.  I mean, when two guys do the work to get a goal for a third guy that just happens to be right in front of the goal it means they did 50% of the work right?

There are drunken frat guys from ONE of these schools yelling directly into the crowd microphone.

Cornell scores yet again on a drive from X by Ross Gillum. Oh, hey Ross.  I didn’t mean that Gollum thing.  I’m sure you can find your way to Mordor by yourself.  PS: Your name is still better than “Long”.  For jokes. 8-3, Big Red.

HOTBED REFERENCE! Birmingham, Alabama has 1400 kids in youth programs, so that’s what, like, 286 parents?  How many coaches do they have?

You should have seen the other picture I wanted to put here…

(“Oh no, he made a southern joke!” Yeah, well I skipped the naughty joke from earlier; I have to make up for it by offending someone.)

Five minutes left in the third quarter.  Princeton looks dead in the water.

(I know the final score; I’m baiting my subconscious).

Fun fact about the Devious Video Recap, I always write this at midnight on Sunday.  It adds the perfect amount of stressed out craziness/lunatic fringe to the prose.

Wow.  Another goal for Cornell.  Rob Pannell plays Wiedmaier like a fiddle by drawing him out and hits David Lau on the crease for an easy goal.

Wow. I. really. Hope. Princeton. Doesn’t. Make. A. Comeback. Then. I. Would. Look. Stupid.

Quint.  Pierce Derkac can’t play deep D in the MLL.  Come on, man.  Maybe LSM.  MAYBE.

Cornell is man up for a conduct foul after Tyler Moni spazzed out about an end line shot going to Fiore instead of him.  He was tweaking out hard, no way he didn’t drop some fudgie bombs right in front of the ref.  Swears, guys.  Swears.  God…

Mike Chanenchuk scores for Princeton and redeems himself ever so slightly for his around the world shot of crap that he tried in the third quarter.  He is now the highest scoring freshman in Princeton history.  He’s a midfielder.  If he keeps his quicks, look out.  I’m a huge fan of the Chanenchuker, and I hate everybody.

Cornell is not getting their match ups on defense.  The Princeton offense is finally picking off ball.  Honestly, what have I been saying ALL year about picking off ball?  It’s not to get the pickee open – it’s to take away the slide or at the very least make the slide that much more difficult when the ball carrier bests his defender.

Princeton’s Scott Mackenzie scores back-to-back goals both of which are smoke bombs past Fiore’s stick.  The money balls are starting to pile up.  Cornell throws a pole on the face to compensate.

Is this a three-goal game right now?

Ooh, bracketology.  If Hopkins gets in then someone is playing dirty pool.  Especially with Denver blasting Loyola for the ECAC crown this weekend.  Tierney finds a way to stick it to the Hop.  He always does.

Jack McBride draws three defenders on an alley dodge and Rob Engelke is the beneficiary of his hard work.  9-7.  Nervous.

Cornell’s briefcase carrying warrior Roy Lang has a go and dodge and deliver’s a jaw-dropping goal as he’s falling to the ground. What a clutch goal.  10-7 Cornell Fiorito making rookie mistakes by dropping on the drive to stop a low shot.

I think Quint just yelled at McEanerny for real on air.  I’m uncomfortable.  Don’t make me choose sides.  It’s like my parents’ fake divorce all over again…

(This column is going to a dark, dark place.)

Chanenchuk gets his hat trick and is officially the rookie of the year on everyone’s ballot.  Is there a rookie of the year?  I don’t even think the Ivies know they have sports they probably just give out awards for rowing and boffing.  What’s boffing?

This is boffing:

How do I know what this is?  I lived next to WPI for one semester and those wacky nerds did this crap on my back lawn.  Even after I threw my roommate’s cat at them.

Alex “That California Kid” Capretta goes low to high and destroys the top corner with one of the best shots of the year.  Wow.  What a comeback.  One goal separates these two smarty-jorts teams.

Classic premature timeout from Cornell.  Hurley was wide open on the longpole drive into the box from the drive.  That’s just poor.

This game is insane.

Was insane.

Cornell pulls it off, but this win feels like a loss…

There is only one Devious Video Recap left?  What? How can that be?

Today’s Devious Video Recap is brought to you by the fine folks at Proathletics.com.

Proathletics.com – They’re the App for that.

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About the author: Kyle Devitte has written for The Boston Cannons, LaxUnited, The MLL, Inside Lacrosse, LaxNation and the New England Lacrosse Journal. He is currently head coach of the Daniel Webster College men’s lacrosse team.

Read all his Devious Video Recaps and relive the best NCAA lacrosse action from 2010.

Want to contribute to Lax All Stars? Drop us a line at info@lacrosseallstars.com.