Final Tune-Up

So I was hoping to write about the NLL a bit this week, but all of a sudden it's Sunday again...Whoops.  So instead, we're back to some SU lacrosse.

SU played Maryland and Canisius in their final scrimmages today.  I didn't stick around for the Canisius game, so I'll just pass along a few notes from the Maryland one.

Today was the final big push for playing time for a team fighting for plenty of starting spots.  The attack unit is probably the most stable returning Palsek and Desko.  Today saw several attackman auditioning for the remaining starting spot as well as who will be the 4th and 5th person off the bench.  Derek Maltz wasn't in, but I have to say true freshman Kevin Rice won some style points today.  He was in nearly the entire second half and opened up with an excellent unassisted goal on a close low angle shot.  While he missed a golden opportunity in an unsettled situation, he scored the go ahead goal with under a minute left in the game.  Not too shabby for a freshman.

I would say that the familiar faces returning all turned in solid performances which should keep hopes high going into the season.  Eilers, Marasco, Palasek, Desko and Megill definitely were showing their experience.  For the "new guys" fighting for spots, a few definitely stood out.

On the defensive end Joe Fazio was stealing the show.  He was taking most of the draws at LSM and was phenomenal.  He was playing very physical, had great help defense, was disruptive in Maryland's passing game and triggered plenty of turnovers.  He definitely didn't have the same offensive prowess as Joel White of last year, but not many do.  For short sticks, Drew Jenkins and Joe Moore were the main two.  Both were playing great individual defense and good in both ground ball and fast break situations.  The defense as a whole was impressive, but seemed to give up most of their goals by missing assignments on picks and cutters.  This left the goalies in some ugly positions.  Speaking of goalies, like last week, Lamolinara was the most impressive out of him and Lerman.  There were a few outside shots where Lerman seemed frozen during the shot.  It'll be interesting to see who starts next week.  The whole defense certainly has some work to do until they're up to par, but the potential is certainly there.  The box-style players coming in next week for Albany will be an excellent test for them since I feel that will be the toughest style of offense for them to defend.

Jumping to the midfield, the starting lineup as of now should be able to take care of business on both ends of the field.  I was definitely paying more attention to the others fighting for the coveted second line.  The two who jumped out to me were Matt Pratt and Henry Schoonmaker.  Pratt seemed to be all over the field and I can't say I ever saw a reason to think he shouldn't be.  He handled the ball well, passes were on target and certainly could play defense when he found himself on that end of the field.  Schoonmaker had a goal after running onto the field during a substitution.  It was a perfectly placed shot from the outside while on the run.  One of the more noteable plays of his was playing defense while on a ride.  He apparently learned a thing or two about body checking defenders up in Oregon, which was made so much more exciting by doing so in front of Maryland's bench.  Not only did he make the hit to knock the ball loose, but he also picked it up to start the transition.  Unfortunately, Cuse lost the ball on a errant throw a few passes later, but it was a good play no matter what.

The last area to address is face-offs.  The starting face-off group usually was Daddio, Fazio and Marasco, although they did move people around a bit.  Overall the faceoff unit was pretty good, but where they lost them usually was in the ground ball phase.  It usually wound up being 3 on 2 at the ground ball, so Maryland would flip the ball into open field to their open guy.  This immediately caused an unsettled situation for the defense.  Fortunately this is all stuff they can work on and if history is any indicator, Coach Donahue will get this fixed in a hurry.

That's all for now, thanks for reading and feel free to leave comments below!