JeremyCuse
Renowned lacrosse analyst
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First off nice win on Saturday when neither side of the ball seemed to be on. Thought the offense got a bunch of great looks in the first half and could have easily been up 3-4 going into half. A few things I took away from the game:
-Barber being held out is a head scratcher but if he needed the rest and is 100% for Sunday then I have zero issue with it.
- Kudos to Wardwell for a great second half but the slow first half starts are going to be the death knell of this team in the tourney. 1 save in the first half is simply not going to cut it. Seems like if Bobby doesn't make a save on the first shot of the game then the next 3-4 are almost automatic to go in. Biggest concern I have is Wardwell's inconsistency from game to game. As a senior he has to give a more even performance especially now that the tourney is upon us.
- Wing play continues to be absolutely abysmal. Thank god for Williams winning 90% of the draws Saturday to himself because otherwise we would have lost a whole bunch. I love Peter McCartney and Scott Firman but I can't remember the last time one of them came up with a groundball on a faceoff scrum or even a faceoff that Williams directed. Messina and Grimm are unfortunately not much better at this point. Grimm must have some sort of deal where he has to get stripped off the ball after a faceoff win because it happens every game and did again yesterday. One thing I will say is that Desko went with Salcido for some draws and I thought he looked the best of the short stick guys, very active and showed some speed. Wouldn't mind seeing him get a few more looks.
A little concerned that Desko and staff gave explicit directions to shoot high based on the scouting that the Colgate Goalie is much better saving shots low then he is high and then we proceeded to pretty much do the opposite of that for most of the game. We took our first few shots high but after he made a couple saves it looked like the team decided OK were going back how we like to play and stopped shooting high. The fact that Desko had to tell them again in a TO in the 4th to "start shooting high, this isnt funny anymore" to me is pretty concerning. Colgate had our offensive tendencies pretty much scouted to a T, we have to be willing to change things up and go with the staff directions more. There a reason that Donahue wrap around and Rice question mark dodge shot high were both saved by Colgate, scouting.
- Galasso continues to carry the load at midfield and looks super smooth out there. Those two rips in the 4th quarter are exactly what this team needs against a zone defense. Really hope he can repeat that against Bryant on Sunday (assuming Marist doesn't win). Speaking of the midfield could someone put out an APB for Leck and Schoonie. Goose eggs for both of those guys. Lecky dissapearing was not a surprise after his two goal game against Duke, its pretty much been his MO his entire career here. The bigger concern is Schoonmaker if hes still not recovered from that shoulder injury then we have a big problem moving forward. The rest of the first midfield besides Nicky has to give this team some semblance of offense. The fact they both went O fer against Colgate's zone has me very concerned about what Bryant is going to do to them.
-I know Desko was trying to mix and match but please can we end the Matt Lane on man up experiment. First of all Barber plays a shooting role on the man up why would you replace him with a 6'7 attackmen who plays around the crease? Second if your going to play Matt Lane on the man up why in the hell is he playing up top? What good is he going to do from up there passing the ball around? He isn't going to dodge and he sure as hell isnt going to shoot it from out there. This is almost a carbon copy of last year when we decided it would be a good idea to put Derek Maltz up top on the man up, total disaster. Why not put Simmons or Westin two guys who have shown the ability to shoot out there. Total head scratcher.
-I thought the D overall did an OK job. We are still really struggling with off ball communication. Young especially keeps sliding for no reason leaving his man wide open around the crease. Mullins got beat a few times but Walsh is a handful for sure. The SSDM's had some trouble with guys dodging past them but they were physical when they needed to be and as always they gave it 100%. Mcdermott slide to quickly a few times but I thought he did a nice job, hes looked a lot better the last few weeks. A few nice plays by Bobby late and his hustle on backups is never in doubt. Kudos to the man down D, didnt allow a score on a 6-4 for the second game in a row, nice job. Ciferri and Gillis continue to earn more PT and are doing a nice job out there. With Messina graduation we are positioned nicely for SSDM next year.
- Not going to get into it to much but the last two minutes of play was pretty sloppy. Lecky after the timeout running a foot away from the end line was idiotic and of course he turned it over almost immediately. On the other end of the field a couple terrible passes after making a stop against colgate including a pass by I think Grimm that he rifled into the turf. In the end Colgate didnt score but I think SU turned it over three straight possessions at the end including two in there own end with under a minute to go, gotta be better then that.
-Lastly the Attack was again good, the ball movement in the first half I thought was excellent we got great looks but we either got stoned or missed the cage completely. Thought we got out of sync for most of the third, didn't like the shot selection and the ball movement wasn't as good. Staats was a little quiet for my liking, would have liked to have seen him try and exploit his matchup a little bit more when Colgate was playing man. Rice and Donahue were good as always, Donahue had a few misses he normally buries but other then that they put in another great effort.
Biggest thing I took from this game is that Ben Williams is really really good and that Syracuse found a way to win despite some issues on both sides of the field. Biggest concern is that the first midfield outside of Galasso is wildly inconsistent and that we seemed to play flat for large stretches of the game. Still when it counts Syracuse got the job done and playing in a close game versus a team playing a lot of zone bolds well for Sunday and beyond.
-Barber being held out is a head scratcher but if he needed the rest and is 100% for Sunday then I have zero issue with it.
- Kudos to Wardwell for a great second half but the slow first half starts are going to be the death knell of this team in the tourney. 1 save in the first half is simply not going to cut it. Seems like if Bobby doesn't make a save on the first shot of the game then the next 3-4 are almost automatic to go in. Biggest concern I have is Wardwell's inconsistency from game to game. As a senior he has to give a more even performance especially now that the tourney is upon us.
- Wing play continues to be absolutely abysmal. Thank god for Williams winning 90% of the draws Saturday to himself because otherwise we would have lost a whole bunch. I love Peter McCartney and Scott Firman but I can't remember the last time one of them came up with a groundball on a faceoff scrum or even a faceoff that Williams directed. Messina and Grimm are unfortunately not much better at this point. Grimm must have some sort of deal where he has to get stripped off the ball after a faceoff win because it happens every game and did again yesterday. One thing I will say is that Desko went with Salcido for some draws and I thought he looked the best of the short stick guys, very active and showed some speed. Wouldn't mind seeing him get a few more looks.
A little concerned that Desko and staff gave explicit directions to shoot high based on the scouting that the Colgate Goalie is much better saving shots low then he is high and then we proceeded to pretty much do the opposite of that for most of the game. We took our first few shots high but after he made a couple saves it looked like the team decided OK were going back how we like to play and stopped shooting high. The fact that Desko had to tell them again in a TO in the 4th to "start shooting high, this isnt funny anymore" to me is pretty concerning. Colgate had our offensive tendencies pretty much scouted to a T, we have to be willing to change things up and go with the staff directions more. There a reason that Donahue wrap around and Rice question mark dodge shot high were both saved by Colgate, scouting.
- Galasso continues to carry the load at midfield and looks super smooth out there. Those two rips in the 4th quarter are exactly what this team needs against a zone defense. Really hope he can repeat that against Bryant on Sunday (assuming Marist doesn't win). Speaking of the midfield could someone put out an APB for Leck and Schoonie. Goose eggs for both of those guys. Lecky dissapearing was not a surprise after his two goal game against Duke, its pretty much been his MO his entire career here. The bigger concern is Schoonmaker if hes still not recovered from that shoulder injury then we have a big problem moving forward. The rest of the first midfield besides Nicky has to give this team some semblance of offense. The fact they both went O fer against Colgate's zone has me very concerned about what Bryant is going to do to them.
-I know Desko was trying to mix and match but please can we end the Matt Lane on man up experiment. First of all Barber plays a shooting role on the man up why would you replace him with a 6'7 attackmen who plays around the crease? Second if your going to play Matt Lane on the man up why in the hell is he playing up top? What good is he going to do from up there passing the ball around? He isn't going to dodge and he sure as hell isnt going to shoot it from out there. This is almost a carbon copy of last year when we decided it would be a good idea to put Derek Maltz up top on the man up, total disaster. Why not put Simmons or Westin two guys who have shown the ability to shoot out there. Total head scratcher.
-I thought the D overall did an OK job. We are still really struggling with off ball communication. Young especially keeps sliding for no reason leaving his man wide open around the crease. Mullins got beat a few times but Walsh is a handful for sure. The SSDM's had some trouble with guys dodging past them but they were physical when they needed to be and as always they gave it 100%. Mcdermott slide to quickly a few times but I thought he did a nice job, hes looked a lot better the last few weeks. A few nice plays by Bobby late and his hustle on backups is never in doubt. Kudos to the man down D, didnt allow a score on a 6-4 for the second game in a row, nice job. Ciferri and Gillis continue to earn more PT and are doing a nice job out there. With Messina graduation we are positioned nicely for SSDM next year.
- Not going to get into it to much but the last two minutes of play was pretty sloppy. Lecky after the timeout running a foot away from the end line was idiotic and of course he turned it over almost immediately. On the other end of the field a couple terrible passes after making a stop against colgate including a pass by I think Grimm that he rifled into the turf. In the end Colgate didnt score but I think SU turned it over three straight possessions at the end including two in there own end with under a minute to go, gotta be better then that.
-Lastly the Attack was again good, the ball movement in the first half I thought was excellent we got great looks but we either got stoned or missed the cage completely. Thought we got out of sync for most of the third, didn't like the shot selection and the ball movement wasn't as good. Staats was a little quiet for my liking, would have liked to have seen him try and exploit his matchup a little bit more when Colgate was playing man. Rice and Donahue were good as always, Donahue had a few misses he normally buries but other then that they put in another great effort.
Biggest thing I took from this game is that Ben Williams is really really good and that Syracuse found a way to win despite some issues on both sides of the field. Biggest concern is that the first midfield outside of Galasso is wildly inconsistent and that we seemed to play flat for large stretches of the game. Still when it counts Syracuse got the job done and playing in a close game versus a team playing a lot of zone bolds well for Sunday and beyond.
