JeremyCuse
Renowned lacrosse analyst
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Well here we are again another season and another shake your head finish. When we went into the half up 7-5 I head a feeling we were going to be in trouble if we didn't come out and grab a goal or two year. Unfortunately we scored two freeking goals the entire second half, just an utter embarrassment. While there were certainly some bright spots yesterday and the season as a whole but a lot of the same issues came back to haunt SU time and time again and they were on full display yesterday as well. This post is going to be brutally honest so if your not into my takes now would be a good time to leave the post.
Yesterdays game turned on 4 things: Turnovers, coaching, officiating, crease defense.
The turnovers were brutal and many unforced. Yes Cornell definitely got away with a bunch of stuff they shouldn't have but SU has struggled with turnovers all year and we had another 15 yesterday. The worst part of those 15 was that at least half were from defenders (long poles/SSDM). As someone astutely pointed out in the game thread, SU players were under attack on the clear especially our long poles who had to try and avoid multiple players and split defenders, where the hell was the attack to help out? I don't believe Cornell was in a 10 man ride just a good hard ride, the attack should have come up to help out so SU could pass out of it, instead they were no where to be found and our defenders were left for the most part to clear on their own. Terrible.
I am not one to blame a loss on the officials and I won't blame yesterday's loss on them either but they were horrible. I don't have a problem if your going to allow a physical game like that but we haven't seen that kind of physicality allowed in a decade +. While certainly not every Cornell hit should have been flagged (several were clean) there were at least a half dozen no calls and I am being conservative with that estimate. Not to mention on at least 2-3 occasions an SU player was rocked late with absolutely no call but we get it with an interference call late in the game. There were multiple blatant loose ball pushes right in front of the officials and of course zero call. The next time I hear a Hopkins fan complain about "Dome officiating" I am going to rip them a new one because no "blue blood" gets less home officiating then we do. I am not looking for favoritism but SU clearly was on the short of the end calls once again in a big game at home, its amazing. Lastly the rules need to change on flags and the game ending. The fact that Cornell mugged Solomon but the game ended before play stopped for the man up means were SOL is ridiculous, what kind of rule is that?
As PhatOrange and Creaserat have pointed out the last few years the man up unit was abysmal. After the first man up where Bomberry missed a wide open look it was a total disaster. Ball not moving crisply, minimal rotating/flashing, ball not being reversed quickly to force slides etc etc etc. You had zero faith SU was going to score on the man up in the 2nd half, absolutely zero. On the other hand Cornell was 3-4 and you knew once they went on the man up they were likely to score. Again so frustrating. Also Cornell didn't cover Lane at all and he had at least 3 or 4 wide open looks where he started to crank and then passed, good god man let it fly your out there because of your shot. If he isn't going to rip let Dordevic or Lipka or someone else with a long range shot get out there who will shoot. Man up unit needs more shooters, to many crease guys in Bomberry, Voight and Solomon.
Defensively I thought SU did a great job on Teat and overall did a pretty good job slowing down Cornell's offense. Unfortunately they again had issues with communications and slides and gave up 5 goals to Petterson none more then 5 yards a way. Individualy SU was again solid but when it came time for slides and communication it was again a Chinese fire drill, guys sliding late or Mellen taking off when SU is in a zone etc etc. You keep waiting for SU to clear up the communication issues with slides but every year its an issue and every year we complain about it. Still SU only gave up 7 6 on 6 goals and one of those was a fluke rebound. Giving up 3 of 4 man up goals was the dagger. Next year will be interesting as SU brings back everyone plus they add Fernandez who should be back from injury and Jerry Staats who won best D player in the JUCO tourney this past weekend. I think Bomberry is still dealing with nagging injuries as he never looked like himself this year and struggled to be that big time crease defender outside of the ND game, way way way to many penalties as well.
Give Varello and Madonna credit, both played excellent I thought. Varello took advantage of Cornells faceoff issues and really dominated. For SU to win 16 of 22 but lose the game is sickening and infuriating. I thought Madonna did a nice job, made some nice saves and didn't let in any bad shots save for 1. Also had a few doorstep saves, he and Varello deserved a better outcome.
Offensively it was all about the attack unit or lack there of. Bomberry had two goals and did what he could but I thought Rehfuss and Solomon were completely shut down and really struggled. Both had a a goal but they came on fluke plays and were pretty much non factors. Its hard to win any game when 2/3rds of your attack is zero factor can't score or force a slide. I hate to even mention this but even though he was the best of the three Bomberry unfortunately left at least 2 goals out there. He had 3 or 4 great looks that he missed that he normally nets at least half of. Again not putting it on him but that missed man up goal and one or two other point blank looks would have changed this game completely. Rehfuss needs to play as a 2, SU was forced to play him as the #1 attackmen/main dodger and thats tough to do for a guy seeing every teams #1 defender for the first time. He had some monster games this year but looked overmatched yesterday, He would do better as a Robin to someones Batman. Solomon is what he is, a decent attackmen who struggles against upper echelon or elite defenses and who hasn't learned to stop with the awful penalties. His performance yesterday was the most dissapointing. SU really needs to overaul the attack unit next year, Staats (if he makes it and Cook should be starting from day 1.
The biggest issue for me was the coaching staff and Desko. We were once again out coached in a big game and made zero adjustments in the second half. Whether you want Desko fired or not there is no rationalizing yet another poor SU performance when it counted most and staff that continues to have zero answers other then shrugging their shoulders and tipping their cap. First of all I am beating a dead horse here but why the hell were we playing the second line every other possession? It wasn't Memorial day and 85 degrees outside, it was 60 something and we hadn't played in a week plus and the 1st line was dealing. 2nd line should have played every third possession at most and probably not at all in the fourth quarter. Instead we got to watch Simmons and Carlin dodge to nowhere and the offense screech to a grinding halt in the latter part of the 4th when SU had a 2 min possession and couldn't put a decent shot on cage. Why no one from the media called out Desko on this in the post game is unbelievable. As someone astutely noted its probably Donahue who does the offensive substitutions, what the hell was he thinking playing the second line that much when the 1st line was playing so well. Again zero awareness from this staff, ZERO. Don't even get me started on the two timeouts in the last 1:30 with SU down a goal, did we even draw up a play, what the heck was that? Plus where was Dordevic the final 30 seconds?
So where do we go from here? I have never been a fire Desko guy but were reaching a point where Wildhack and the admin have to get off their asses before we become Princeton. First off a staff shake up is needed, period. Whether its Rogers or Donahue a young Coordinator needs to come in to inject some youth and emotion and energy on this team. Desko, Rogers and Donahue have become way to complacent and there is zero emotion on the sideline. The calm demeanor thing works when SU is winning games and advancing in the tournament that crap is infuriating when were losing. The end of the game summed it up when after the flag was thrown and the clock ran out, was Desko out there yelling or demanding answers, hell no he sauntered over to the Gatorade cooler shaking his head, Jesus man show some freeking emotion here and maybe fire your team up for a change, I saw more energy at an 85 year olds bday party this past weekend. How about working the officials after all of those missed calls, were Syracuse at home, you think Marr or Tierney is letting that crap happen in a home playoff game?
Going into next fall I assume the staff will remain the same because I doubt the administration will do anything at this point so its' hard to expect wholesale changes. We do need to find away to get Staats here and we need to overhaul the attack unit. The #1 objective has to be Staats, period. I don't care how we do it, get him here. Second Desko needs to get a transfer FOGO here and he needs to make sure we don't get hit to hard by transfers. It's no secret Trimboli's family wasn't happy with the lack of PT for the first line this year and I am sure yesterday isn't going to help. I am sure we will lose some guys to transfer but we need to keep the Quinn's and Buttermores of the world here and make sure Trimboli doesn't do something foolish. We also need to go back to our roots and get more run n gun in our offense. We saw flashes of it this year and it really seemed the team was playing its best in that kind of style. Now I am not advocating we try to go back to the Gait and Powell eras and do that 100% of the time because as UVA has shown thats not going to work but when transition is there push it and don't be afraid to take some risk. This was a mostly young team so I am not going to go over the deep end on this outcome but there needs to be noted improvement next year in all facets. SU needs to clean up the mistakes that haunted this team all year and we need to see growth next year and a solid tourney run or its time to call Galloway and make some difficult decisions.
Yesterdays game turned on 4 things: Turnovers, coaching, officiating, crease defense.
The turnovers were brutal and many unforced. Yes Cornell definitely got away with a bunch of stuff they shouldn't have but SU has struggled with turnovers all year and we had another 15 yesterday. The worst part of those 15 was that at least half were from defenders (long poles/SSDM). As someone astutely pointed out in the game thread, SU players were under attack on the clear especially our long poles who had to try and avoid multiple players and split defenders, where the hell was the attack to help out? I don't believe Cornell was in a 10 man ride just a good hard ride, the attack should have come up to help out so SU could pass out of it, instead they were no where to be found and our defenders were left for the most part to clear on their own. Terrible.
I am not one to blame a loss on the officials and I won't blame yesterday's loss on them either but they were horrible. I don't have a problem if your going to allow a physical game like that but we haven't seen that kind of physicality allowed in a decade +. While certainly not every Cornell hit should have been flagged (several were clean) there were at least a half dozen no calls and I am being conservative with that estimate. Not to mention on at least 2-3 occasions an SU player was rocked late with absolutely no call but we get it with an interference call late in the game. There were multiple blatant loose ball pushes right in front of the officials and of course zero call. The next time I hear a Hopkins fan complain about "Dome officiating" I am going to rip them a new one because no "blue blood" gets less home officiating then we do. I am not looking for favoritism but SU clearly was on the short of the end calls once again in a big game at home, its amazing. Lastly the rules need to change on flags and the game ending. The fact that Cornell mugged Solomon but the game ended before play stopped for the man up means were SOL is ridiculous, what kind of rule is that?
As PhatOrange and Creaserat have pointed out the last few years the man up unit was abysmal. After the first man up where Bomberry missed a wide open look it was a total disaster. Ball not moving crisply, minimal rotating/flashing, ball not being reversed quickly to force slides etc etc etc. You had zero faith SU was going to score on the man up in the 2nd half, absolutely zero. On the other hand Cornell was 3-4 and you knew once they went on the man up they were likely to score. Again so frustrating. Also Cornell didn't cover Lane at all and he had at least 3 or 4 wide open looks where he started to crank and then passed, good god man let it fly your out there because of your shot. If he isn't going to rip let Dordevic or Lipka or someone else with a long range shot get out there who will shoot. Man up unit needs more shooters, to many crease guys in Bomberry, Voight and Solomon.
Defensively I thought SU did a great job on Teat and overall did a pretty good job slowing down Cornell's offense. Unfortunately they again had issues with communications and slides and gave up 5 goals to Petterson none more then 5 yards a way. Individualy SU was again solid but when it came time for slides and communication it was again a Chinese fire drill, guys sliding late or Mellen taking off when SU is in a zone etc etc. You keep waiting for SU to clear up the communication issues with slides but every year its an issue and every year we complain about it. Still SU only gave up 7 6 on 6 goals and one of those was a fluke rebound. Giving up 3 of 4 man up goals was the dagger. Next year will be interesting as SU brings back everyone plus they add Fernandez who should be back from injury and Jerry Staats who won best D player in the JUCO tourney this past weekend. I think Bomberry is still dealing with nagging injuries as he never looked like himself this year and struggled to be that big time crease defender outside of the ND game, way way way to many penalties as well.
Give Varello and Madonna credit, both played excellent I thought. Varello took advantage of Cornells faceoff issues and really dominated. For SU to win 16 of 22 but lose the game is sickening and infuriating. I thought Madonna did a nice job, made some nice saves and didn't let in any bad shots save for 1. Also had a few doorstep saves, he and Varello deserved a better outcome.
Offensively it was all about the attack unit or lack there of. Bomberry had two goals and did what he could but I thought Rehfuss and Solomon were completely shut down and really struggled. Both had a a goal but they came on fluke plays and were pretty much non factors. Its hard to win any game when 2/3rds of your attack is zero factor can't score or force a slide. I hate to even mention this but even though he was the best of the three Bomberry unfortunately left at least 2 goals out there. He had 3 or 4 great looks that he missed that he normally nets at least half of. Again not putting it on him but that missed man up goal and one or two other point blank looks would have changed this game completely. Rehfuss needs to play as a 2, SU was forced to play him as the #1 attackmen/main dodger and thats tough to do for a guy seeing every teams #1 defender for the first time. He had some monster games this year but looked overmatched yesterday, He would do better as a Robin to someones Batman. Solomon is what he is, a decent attackmen who struggles against upper echelon or elite defenses and who hasn't learned to stop with the awful penalties. His performance yesterday was the most dissapointing. SU really needs to overaul the attack unit next year, Staats (if he makes it and Cook should be starting from day 1.
The biggest issue for me was the coaching staff and Desko. We were once again out coached in a big game and made zero adjustments in the second half. Whether you want Desko fired or not there is no rationalizing yet another poor SU performance when it counted most and staff that continues to have zero answers other then shrugging their shoulders and tipping their cap. First of all I am beating a dead horse here but why the hell were we playing the second line every other possession? It wasn't Memorial day and 85 degrees outside, it was 60 something and we hadn't played in a week plus and the 1st line was dealing. 2nd line should have played every third possession at most and probably not at all in the fourth quarter. Instead we got to watch Simmons and Carlin dodge to nowhere and the offense screech to a grinding halt in the latter part of the 4th when SU had a 2 min possession and couldn't put a decent shot on cage. Why no one from the media called out Desko on this in the post game is unbelievable. As someone astutely noted its probably Donahue who does the offensive substitutions, what the hell was he thinking playing the second line that much when the 1st line was playing so well. Again zero awareness from this staff, ZERO. Don't even get me started on the two timeouts in the last 1:30 with SU down a goal, did we even draw up a play, what the heck was that? Plus where was Dordevic the final 30 seconds?
So where do we go from here? I have never been a fire Desko guy but were reaching a point where Wildhack and the admin have to get off their asses before we become Princeton. First off a staff shake up is needed, period. Whether its Rogers or Donahue a young Coordinator needs to come in to inject some youth and emotion and energy on this team. Desko, Rogers and Donahue have become way to complacent and there is zero emotion on the sideline. The calm demeanor thing works when SU is winning games and advancing in the tournament that crap is infuriating when were losing. The end of the game summed it up when after the flag was thrown and the clock ran out, was Desko out there yelling or demanding answers, hell no he sauntered over to the Gatorade cooler shaking his head, Jesus man show some freeking emotion here and maybe fire your team up for a change, I saw more energy at an 85 year olds bday party this past weekend. How about working the officials after all of those missed calls, were Syracuse at home, you think Marr or Tierney is letting that crap happen in a home playoff game?
Going into next fall I assume the staff will remain the same because I doubt the administration will do anything at this point so its' hard to expect wholesale changes. We do need to find away to get Staats here and we need to overhaul the attack unit. The #1 objective has to be Staats, period. I don't care how we do it, get him here. Second Desko needs to get a transfer FOGO here and he needs to make sure we don't get hit to hard by transfers. It's no secret Trimboli's family wasn't happy with the lack of PT for the first line this year and I am sure yesterday isn't going to help. I am sure we will lose some guys to transfer but we need to keep the Quinn's and Buttermores of the world here and make sure Trimboli doesn't do something foolish. We also need to go back to our roots and get more run n gun in our offense. We saw flashes of it this year and it really seemed the team was playing its best in that kind of style. Now I am not advocating we try to go back to the Gait and Powell eras and do that 100% of the time because as UVA has shown thats not going to work but when transition is there push it and don't be afraid to take some risk. This was a mostly young team so I am not going to go over the deep end on this outcome but there needs to be noted improvement next year in all facets. SU needs to clean up the mistakes that haunted this team all year and we need to see growth next year and a solid tourney run or its time to call Galloway and make some difficult decisions.
