The LacroCity Weekend Primer 4/9/21
It's Dark and Hell is Hot.
Hello, I have bypassed your spam filter once again. It’s Friday which means that it’s time for your weekly dose of caffeinated inanity and analysis. As always, please feel free to become a paid subscriber if you are so able. You can even contribute to the podcast if you would prefer to do that. I used to feel bad about asking people for money, but today I used two pens to construct a rolling mechanism to get every drop of almond butter out of a free sample from a food co-op. So. You do what you think is best.
Stat of the Week
Jarrett Bromwell. Salisbury Seagulls. Destroyer of Worlds.
That’s it. He gets his own title to go with a career full of highlights from one game. His performance against Christopher Newport last weekend was as close to a player being invincible as I have seen all season in any division. It’s not just his goal tally (7), it’s his ability to get his hands free and convert his shots with power and accuracy. When you see high goal totals you usually assume half of them are dunks or cherry-picked layups. You tell me what you see here:
Game to Watch
North Carolina vs. Virginia
If you love lacrosse, you cannot miss this game. It’s almost too easy to fire up the hype machine for this one, but sometimes the easy thing is the right thing to do despite what all the entrepreneurs on Instagram Reels tell you. Related: you need to sleep, not sleeping will make you crazy. Don’t listen to Steve Harvey. The only videos you should watch on Instagram are those dancing videos where the heads don’t move and maybe lacrosse highlights. The latter of which this game is likely to produce in buckets with buckets.
Chris Gray will terrorize the Virginia defense just like he did last time. The fact of the matter is that the Cavs do not have someone with feet quick enough to stay in lockstep with Mr. Gray. So what do you do? You gameplan to stop him from scoring easy goals by packing the middle of the field and hedging hard with your one and two slides to force the ball up top. Is it the best plan in the world? No. Is it the only option? Probably.
Conversely, who does Will Bowen guard? Do you put him on Shellenberger this time and refuse to slide off of Payton Cormier and Ian Laviano? Do you put Bowen on Matt Moore and play him straight up to take points off the board that way? There are so many options but none of them actually sound all that great. UVA is going to put up 12-15 goals no matter what you do, the best you can hope to cope with that is to put up more and try to dictate which players you’d rather have trying to get those goals. Good luck shorting Dox Aitken or Charlie Bertrand. What are you going to do faceguard Ian Laviano and Matt Moore?
The face-off battle will be fun as Petey LaSalla is fresh off of his Mid-Season Honorable All-American selection and UNC’s duo of Zac Tucci and Andrew Tyeryar are coming in looking to better their previous ACC performance against Duke where they combined to go 10-25 at the X. Tucci and Tyeryar might be winning near 60% overall, but in their two ACC games they have gone 21-57. If the Cavs have a chance to break away it will be because of a breakout performance by LaSalla, who went 21-31 last time around.
If this game goes full John Woo action shootout we may be in for a 40 plus goal game, and as someone who believes in the axiom “Goals Are Good” that would be the ideal scenario. Both defenses will, of course, abhor such a notion but both defenses are susceptible to giving up dozens of shots whether they be generated by turnovers, quick restarts, or crossfield passes. This game will not be about rides or man-ups or even isolation play - it will be about full octane three and four pass looks resulting in shots that will hit 8mm of spun textile and/or ping off of hard wrought steel. This is the game of the week/month/season for lovers of the lascivious art of scoring.
One on One Matchup to Watch
The NESCAC vs. Tufts
Earlier this week I wrote about how 2018 NCAA champion Wesleyan filled out their roster with student-athletes from other programs in order to have a full squad for 2021. Several other NESCAC teams have faced similar measures with more or less desperation. It makes sense; if players can prolong their athletic careers for another year why not do it? Why not look forward to some normalcy instead of playing games where you have to wear masks and not celebrate with your teammates when you score goals?
But the other side of the coin is this - when the 2020 season was canceled, Tufts was the best team in the nation. You can make arguments for the usual haunts, but I saw Tufts play in person last year. It was like the first time I read the comic where Magneto pulled the adamantium out of Wolverine. By nature, I am a destroyer. I look for flaws in everything. I am notorious for it. I saw no flaws. No weaknesses in the Jumbos. I detected only excellence. The last time I felt that way about a lacrosse team was the 2008 Rochester Rattlers.
This week Tufts opens NESCAC play against Colby College at Bello Field. No spectators are allowed. But if you can make time to watch the stream, it will be worth it just to see if the Jumbos’ excellence will bleed through the screen and then brighten your spring.
Devitte Matrix Leaderboard Presented by Lacrosse Reference
The Devitte Matrix is a number that combines a player’s goals and assists and subtracts their turnovers. We’re trying to make it into an effective and more universal measurement of true offensive impact. These hands are for helping; not hurting.
Chris Gray, UNC, 48 (5.33 DMPG)
Joe Robertson, Duke, 36 (3.75 DMPG)
Ryan Smith, RMU, 35 (3.89 DMPG)
Michael Sowers, Duke, 34 (3.4 DMPG)
Jared Bernhardt, Maryland, 32 (4.57 DMPG)
Is Clark going to win this week?
Since they’re playing Coast Guard - who beat Springfield, the Darth Vader of the NEWMAC last week - I’m going to say probably not. But let’s say that the Cougars do get a victory here. By the transitive property, Clark would then be better than Springfield, which is not the kind of math that I learned in my time on the mean streets of Worcester. Wait. I took a word problem class pass/fail for my math equivalency. Nevermind. But still - Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams. #RollCougs.
My senior year at Clark I got to choose most of the songs on the warm-up. One of the non-negotiables was DMX’s “X Gon’ Give It To Ya”. I would sing/scream it through line drills before every game. When I coached at Daniel Webster I put “The Prayer III” on our warm-up. I was asked to take it off multiple times. I refused.
Something about DMX - I suspect his ability to channel his pain into his gruff and powerful voice and lyrics - always spoke to something in me. I think a lot of people are afraid to meet the monster that lives inside them. I don’t think Earl Simmons was/is any different in that fear, but he understood it in a way that most of us don’t. Today it’s okay to let out a guttural scream, shed one tear, and burn out of your driveway.