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Not So Deep Thoughts

Duke lost and although I thought it would happen sooner rather than later, I did think they would squeak out a W against Notre Dame.  This is a big win for the Irish who went undefeated in the regular season last year only to lose handily to Maryland in the NCAAs.  They did that  on the back of an easy schedule and it’s great to see them playing competitive lacrosse games and still winning.  I’m much more of a believer now.

Stanwick (#6), via Lax.com

UVA’s uniforms are tight.  simple, smooth and classy.  Steele Stanwick is definitely ready to take charge of that attack unit and Connor English will definitely be a big time scorer by season’s end.  He has to be for Virginia to do well.   The Wahoos midfield is big and strong and fast.  perfect.  They generate good looks but had some trouble finishing against Drexel.  That will only get better.  Drexel’s keeper looked good and they will continue to compete in 2010.

I played a little lax this weekend with Craven for Southampton in the Ulax league in New York City.  Good times.  The field was only about two thirds as wide as usual because of all the snow but the two guys who run the league were out shoveling the field on Friday and Saturday.  Just so we could get our lax jones on.  RESPECT!

Sure there was snow on the field. But we made do.

I’m a big believer in Ulax because it’s so accessible.  In a place like NYC, where there are a ton of post-collegiate players spanning the spectrum from Cal to Cuse, and the league has a solid competitive level of play, anywhere between 6 and 10 teams and we play on turf fields you can get to via the subway.

Games are in the same place, you never have to travel far and it’s cheap.  $125 for a season.  Could be worse!  I’ve been tempted to get back into the A.L.L. but honestly, long cars trips every other weekend for club lacrosse games just doesn’t do it for me.  I’m old and lame, what can I say?

College kids aren't the only ones laxing it up early in the season.

It was actually somewhat warm (depends on your definition of warm, I guess) on Sunday with temps in the mid 40s but that didn’t stop the stick breaking gnome from rearing his ugly face and wreaking havoc.  At least once or twice a game you heard that familiar winter pop that a stick makes when it breaks.

When your stick has been all warm and snug in your apartment all winter and you bring it our for the first time, be prepared to say bye-bye.  It’s sad really.

And that means you’re going to have to buy a new stick or ask your buddy who is still playing at the Hop to send you some swag.  Well as you break sticks and ruin your gloves and are looking for a suitable replacement, you can check out LAS and 412’s combined efforts to review as much top notch equipment as possible.  It’s going to be honest, we’ll tell you where we got the equipment and there will be some senseless opinion in there as well because we know you like it.

LAS and 412 are also doing a season long picking contest and right now it’s pretty tight.  As the season progresses I think we’ll see no lead is safe in this little competition.  Other than Duke losing to ND, no real surprises this week.  That being said, I’m still winning.

There’s some good action coming up this week and I’m probably most excited for the Cortland State – Western New England College game.  CSU beat WNEC by 1 last year in their closest NCAA game on the way to the Championship.  WNEC has great goalkeeping in Knowlton, a lot of good athletes and a good system that the players buy into.  They lost a lot to graduation but will reload.

Cortland has real stars coming back in Tota, Krol, DeLuca, Miscazek and Schneidman and although they lost some key components of last year’s team to graduation, this group will be ready to roll early.

SO far 1-2 Jacksonville has to be the surprise of the year.  They lost to UNC by 6, then lost to Bellarmine by 1.  I thought they would go on to drop a couple more early games and then they go and upset Denver.  Granted Denver had just played Cuse but this is a big win.  The talent in Florida is growing and Kerwick already seems to have a Canadian pipeline going.  All of the guys scoring and making big plays are underclassmen so the future is bright in North Florida for the NCAA’s first D1 men’s team.

Oregon looked like a clearly superior team in their game against Cal.  Thanks to BHSVideoDad for the quality content!

Trinity won the college squash national championship over Yale.  There was taunting and bad sportsmanship on both sides.  I know squash is a great game and all but seriously, save that kind of passion for the trading floor next year, ok?  That bespoke suit will be yours soon enough.
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Contact the author of this post at connor@lacrosseallstars.com.