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Loyola – UNC Scrimmage Report

Loyola made the relatively short trek down to Chapel Hill last weekend to take on the North Carolina Tar Heels in men’s lacrosse preseason scrimmage action. Last year, the weather was beautiful, but this year there was a chill in the air, and both teams opted for sweat pants. Personally, I love sweatpants.

Loyola ran their starters for the beginning of the scrimmage (through the 1st quarter at least), and then started to substitute pretty liberally. UNC played their starters for a considerably longer run of time, and seeing as a couple of these guys, like defender Evan Connell and midfielders Steve Pontrello and Spencer Parks, are freshman, the move made sense. Holman led UNC with 4 goals.

In the end, UNC came out on top by 1 goal, although the 11-10 scoreline is pretty meaningless, since it is only a preseason scrimmage. However, that doesn’t mean we didn’t learn anything from the day’s action!

A big take away from this game is that while UNC seemed more focused on finding chemistry with their go-to players, Loyola ran a LOT of guys, and gave some new players a real chance to play, and prove themselves. Last year, the Hounds didn’t suffer many injuries, which was fortunate, but it seems (at least to me) like they might this year, if only because people will be gunning for them every single game out in 2013. Don’t believe me? Did you watch the USA game? Ouch.

If you’re worried about a key injury popping up, running lots of guys in a preseasons scrimmage seems like a good plan to me. Just when you think Loyola is done innovating, and they go and do something like this… and TOTALLY prove me wrong.

Innovators never sleep.

For more D1 Preview coverage, check out the 2013 Alphabetical NCAA D1 Previews!