Attack Log Jam

[CuseNHouse]

Assuming Hiltz , Spallina, Scanlan play out , that’s 3 years potentially of that line if we have a 21 season and Scanlan takes his 5th covid year ...
where does that leave
- Cook
- Berkman
- Ehrlbeck
- Woody
- Aburn
- Seebold
- Birtwhistle
- Leo
- Corsi
- other ? / I’m sure I’m missing at Least one

perhaps Seebold or Cook or Scanlan move to mid / but only so many spots and only one as the 4th guy in ..have to think many of these guys are transfer possibilities

 

[OttosDad]

Assuming Hiltz , Spallina, Scanlan play out , that’s 3 years potentially of that line if we have a 21 season and Scanlan takes his 5th covid year ...
where does that leave
- Cook
- Berkman
- Ehrlbeck
- Woody
- Aburn
- Seebold
- Birtwhistle
- Leo
- Corsi
- other ? / I’m sure I’m missing at Least one

perhaps Seebold or Cook or Scanlan move to mid / but only so many spots and only one as the 4th guy in ..have to think many of these guys are transfer possibilities

Could be wrong but I think that Woody is a midfielder. So that eliminates one from the equation. I also know some people have said they aren't sure if Scanlan will in fact use that Covid year of eligibility meaning he would only be here for two more seasons...

I really hope they keep Birtwhistle around. His tape was very impressive. He could potentially be a midfielder candidate too.

 

[Stealth4785]

Could be wrong but I think that Woody is a midfielder. So that eliminates one from the equation. I also know some people have said they aren't sure if Scanlan will in fact use that Covid year of eligibility meaning he would only be here for two more seasons...

I really hope they keep Birtwhistle around. His tape was very impressive. He could potentially be a midfielder candidate too.

They should run a competent and capable third midfield line with all the talent they have and run other teams out of the game.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Assuming Hiltz , Spallina, Scanlan play out , that’s 3 years potentially of that line if we have a 21 season and Scanlan takes his 5th covid year ...
where does that leave
- Cook
- Berkman
- Ehrlbeck
- Woody
- Aburn
- Seebold
- Birtwhistle
- Leo
- Corsi
- other ? / I’m sure I’m missing at Least one

perhaps Seebold or Cook or Scanlan move to mid / but only so many spots and only one as the 4th guy in ..have to think many of these guys are transfer possibilities

Scanlan has 2021, 2022, and 2023 left, if he stays as long as he can.
Cook has 2021, 2022, and 2023 left.

Hiltz will have 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Spallina won't even be here until 2023. He doesn't graduate HS until June 2022. He'll have 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026.

It's a nice problem to have in 2023. The numbers always sort themselves out.

 

[Feelingmelo]

Thats what great recruiting and winning brings. Look at football. Alabama and Clemson have a consistent log jam. They're a reload situation. Given recwnt Syracuse sports history its foreign territory for many of us. If we maintain both winning and recruiting we may have future transfers, but next man up.

 

[DoctahLexus]

Hiltz seems very comfortable at the middie position along with attack. It suits his long range shooting ability as well. You see him at middie in a lot of the culver game footage

 

[W'boro'Cuse315]

I posted the following in the Spallina thread but will repost here:

Assuming Spallina comes, Cook uses his 5th year, & Scanlan doesn’t, I see our starting attack over the next few years as follows:

‘21- Scanlan, Rehfuss (QB), Hiltz, (Cook 4th)
‘22- Scanlan, Cook (QB), Hiltz
‘23- Spallina/Cook (interchangeable), Hiltz
‘24- Spallina, ?, Hiltz

 

[W'boro'Cuse315]

Scanlan is already one of the best righty wing attacks in the country & I see Hiltz being among the best lefty attacks by his sophomore year. I think they’re both set in stone & the only change you’ll see is Cook replacing Rehfuss at QB to give a change of pace or when Rehfuss struggles, as he has for spans in each of the last 4 years. Cook will then inherit the QB role full-time for his final 2 years (including COVID year). I think Spallina will replace Scanlan at righty attack as a frosh, as he seems slightly more comfortable dodging from that wing rather than X at this stage.

 

[CuseNHouse]

Good comments - we haven’t had this good “problem“ for a while , and some of these guys will likely find themselves playing mid -

Of the incoming - I was excited about Birtwhistle (as an aside I had a conversation with dordevic about Him and he said he is a phenomenal talent ) ..also Ehrlbeck and Leo (and Corsi) seem like good find - just not sure how / when these guys get significant time based on scenarios , but as mentioned, numbers will somehow sort themselves out

 

[ClvrUsrnm]

If kids want to get on the field, they need to bust their asses to prove they belong out there and force the coaches to put them in. You know, the old fashioned way.

 

[sholokov2]

talented athletes can play a and m as illustrated by many UVA, ND, UNC, and Duke teams of recent years. We might see six players who came in at attack playing all six offensive first team positions. Actual space on the field is fungible. Any offensive player can occupy any space at any time. Perhaps the only position requiring his own space is the QB, but many mids can play as well from behind as the QB. Kids who do not have the confidence to play both may opt out of SU, but most attack recruits will remain, I believe.

 

[Shrmdougluvr]

People sleeping on Ferris. Someone can check me if I am wrong, but he was the dominant player in Section 2 a few years back and that includes a few Nisky D-1 kids including Behrman (who I acknowledge was just a frosh at the time). Maybe he ends up a middle, but the kid is very athletic, and very well put together.

 

[Powellfan]

I posted the following in the Spallina thread but will repost here:

Assuming Spallina comes, Cook uses his 5th year, & Scanlan doesn’t, I see our starting attack over the next few years as follows:

‘21- Scanlan, Rehfuss (QB), Hiltz, (Cook 4th)
‘22- Scanlan, Cook (QB), Hiltz
‘23- Spallina/Cook (interchangeable), Hiltz
‘24- Spallina, ?, Hiltz

These are fun hypotheticals. Just a few thoughts -

- Future lineups may seem easy to predict, but we hardly get one year to the next completely right, let alone three or four years down the road. A few years ago we all thought Logan Wisnauskas would be a mainstay on the attack line, he never played a minute. It would be fun to go back a few years and see what our predictions would be about the '19 or '20 attack lines. They probably didn't include Scanlan. I thought Seebold would be a much bigger contributor. Some players will transfer, some won't pan out the way we thought, and some will over perform and get more time than we thought.

- Important to keep in mind the lefty/righty dynamics. I can't remember an attack line for the Orange that wasn't two righties and a lefty. I'm sure two lefties could play together, I just don't know if I've seen it.

- I'm not sure I agree with the presumption that Cook will be a "QB". I think of players in the QB role as having more assists than goals, and at least as a high schooler, Cook had more goals than assists (I think 60 vs 30). The SU offense under March isn't super reliant on a QB so I'm not sure it matters, but I don't think that is Cook's game.

-Cook remains the wild card for me. In the preseason games it seemed like he was a leading scorer, but once the regular season started he didn't put up many points. His biggest contribution was in the riding game, and that was huge, but you'd still like to see a starting attackman put up more points. The Army game still stands out to me as a warning (attack was held to zero points).

-Birstwistle and Ferris bring something that I think is needed to the group - size. Cook is obviously small at 5'7, Rhefuss and Scanlan are tall but both very skinny. Obvoiusly talent should win out, but it seems like SU has need a bruising, doding attackman for a while to shake things up when the midfield gets stagnated. I thought maybe Seebold could fill that role but he has been snake-bit and has never quite looked comfortable (looked like he was hitting his stride at middie at the end of last year though). Maybe one of these two freshmen can be a "change of pace" player this year?

-I think we all assume Hiltz and Spallina will be starting attackmen, but the midfield is much harder to predict. Lots of impressive looking players, but no Five Star type players until you get to Kempney in two years. Maybe these attackmen end up playing more midfield than they thought.

 

[CHSLAX]

Ferris was a AA as a jr. Although he rarely got the #1 pole as his squad had another AA that year who is now at Cornell. 5 or 6 D1 players from Sect 2 in that class all on offense. He is very good and probably under the radar but that is a tough lineup to crack. Quinn from Nisky was top 10 in the country at one point and may never start a game in his career. The extra years for the current players doesn't help but as has been said good problems to have I guess unless you're the player who can't crack the lineup. As there always is you will see a few guys leave to get more pt.

 

[ohmilax34]

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026
Righty	Scanlon	Scanlon
	Birtwhistle	Birtwhistle	Birtwhistle	Birtwhistle
	Berkman	Berkman	Berkman	Berkman
X	Cook	Cook	Spallina	Spallina	Spallina	Spallina
	Ferris	Ferris	Ferris	Ferris
		Corsi	Corsi	Corsi	Corsi
Lefty	Rehfuss
	Hiltz	Hiltz	Hiltz	Hiltz
			Leo	Leo	Leo	Leo

 

[ohmilax34]

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026
Midfield	Seebold
	Birtwhistle	Birtwhistle	Birtwhistle	Birtwhistle
	Ferris	Ferris	Ferris	Ferris
		Corsi	Corsi	Corsi	Corsi
Roster Depth	Aburn	Aburn
	Erlbeck	Erlbeck	Erlbeck	Erlbeck

 

[Shrmdougluvr]

These are fun hypotheticals. Just a few thoughts -

- Important to keep in mind the lefty/righty dynamics. I can't remember an attack line for the Orange that wasn't two righties and a lefty. I'm sure two lefties could play together, I just don't know if I've seen it.

I'm relatively new to the game and have a few questions:

What's the primary reason why offenses do not run with two lefties? Is it just by their general design, which makes fitting a second lefty into the attack more cumbersome?
Also, aren't most of these kids completely two handed by this stage?

With respect to the offensive middies, is there also a ratio of righty to lefty players?

 

[ohmilax34]

That's how I see it and I will go over some of my assumptions, observations and reasoning.

I am assuming nobody uses a 5th COVID year. A lot of guys can, but I wanted to make this a little cleaner. I do assume Berkman takes a 5th year, because he was injured early in 2020. Maybe that's a bad assumption.

I don't think Aburn or Erlbeck should really be considered part of the depth chart. I don't think either will be considered for important playing time. I always root for all SU players and I would love it if they proved me wrong. Watch some of Erlbeck's HS full games. He isn't a dominant player.

The guys I have listed next to midfield are those I think make sense to move to midfield because there is someone in front of them at attack that's better, and they are athletic enough to play midfield. Birtwhistle's highlights show much of his work is done above the goal. Corsi looks very athletic. If he's a great attackman, they may just keep him there. Who knows?

I really don't know where Berkman fits in at all. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see much of him in 2020.

I like Ferris a lot. I think he's got some attributes that SU hasn't had in a while, like size and a real comfort behind the goal with a defender on him.

 

[ohmilax34]

I'm relatively new to the game and have a few questions:

What's the primary reason why offenses do not run with two lefties? Is it just by their general design, which makes fitting a second lefty into the attack more cumbersome?
Also, aren't most of these kids completely two handed by this stage?

With respect to the offensive middies, is there also a ratio of righty to lefty players?

In my opinion, lefties are usually more one-handed than righties, due to there being fewer of them. They get put in the left handed spot on attack and they are rewarded for having a great left hand. No need to work on the right. Righties seem to develop their off-hand better because there are lots of other spots on the field for them where having two good hands makes sense.

There are more and more players getting to college with one dominant hand due to the explosion of box lacrosse and that style of play. In box lacrosse, players use their dominant hand and almost never switch hands. They get really good at protecting their stick this way and getting to good spots on the field to shoot.

I seem to remember SU having midfield lines with all righties and all or mostly lefties. Of course, they were probably more two-handed than players now, so it wasn't a big deal.

SU has tried two lefties on offense and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. 2007 Leveille and Hardy didn't work. 2019 Rehfuss and Voigt worked. I think it has to do with the type of player each of them are and where they like to play on the field. If you looked at a heat map of Hardy and Leveille, it probably would've looked like they played in the same spots on the field. If you looked at Rehfuss and Voigt, they usually occupied different spots on the field.

SU has had 3 righties on attack. Two that come to mind are 2000 (R. Powell, Banks and Springer) and 2002 (M. Powell, Coffman and Springer). All besides Springer were very much two-handed.

 

[CuseAlum87]

Both Voigt and Rehfuss are lefties and both started at attack for the 2019 season.

 

[Powellfan]

In my opinion, lefties are usually more one-handed than righties, due to there being fewer of them. They get put in the left handed spot on attack and they are rewarded for having a great left hand. No need to work on the right. Righties seem to develop their off-hand better because there are lots of other spots on the field for them where having two good hands makes sense.

There are more and more players getting to college with one dominant hand due to the explosion of box lacrosse and that style of play. In box lacrosse, players use their dominant hand and almost never switch hands. They get really good at protecting their stick this way and getting to good spots on the field to shoot.

I seem to remember SU having midfield lines with all righties and all or mostly lefties. Of course, they were probably more two-handed than players now, so it wasn't a big deal.

SU has tried two lefties on offense and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. 2007 Leveille and Hardy didn't work. 2019 Rehfuss and Voigt worked. I think it has to do with the type of player each of them are and where they like to play on the field. If you looked at a heat map of Hardy and Leveille, it probably would've looked like they played in the same spots on the field. If you looked at Rehfuss and Voigt, they usually occupied different spots on the field.

SU has had 3 righties on attack. Two that come to mind are 2000 (R. Powell, Banks and Springer) and 2002 (M. Powell, Coffman and Springer). All besides Springer were very much two-handed.

This is great, thank you.

 

[sholokov2]

These are fun hypotheticals. Just a few thoughts -

- Future lineups may seem easy to predict, but we hardly get one year to the next completely right, let alone three or four years down the road. A few years ago we all thought Logan Wisnauskas would be a mainstay on the attack line, he never played a minute. It would be fun to go back a few years and see what our predictions would be about the '19 or '20 attack lines. They probably didn't include Scanlan. I thought Seebold would be a much bigger contributor. Some players will transfer, some won't pan out the way we thought, and some will over perform and get more time than we thought.

- Important to keep in mind the lefty/righty dynamics. I can't remember an attack line for the Orange that wasn't two righties and a lefty. I'm sure two lefties could play together, I just don't know if I've seen it.

- I'm not sure I agree with the presumption that Cook will be a "QB". I think of players in the QB role as having more assists than goals, and at least as a high schooler, Cook had more goals than assists (I think 60 vs 30). The SU offense under March isn't super reliant on a QB so I'm not sure it matters, but I don't think that is Cook's game.

-Cook remains the wild card for me. In the preseason games it seemed like he was a leading scorer, but once the regular season started he didn't put up many points. His biggest contribution was in the riding game, and that was huge, but you'd still like to see a starting attackman put up more points. The Army game still stands out to me as a warning (attack was held to zero points).

-Birstwistle and Ferris bring something that I think is needed to the group - size. Cook is obviously small at 5'7, Rhefuss and Scanlan are tall but both very skinny. Obvoiusly talent should win out, but it seems like SU has need a bruising, doding attackman for a while to shake things up when the midfield gets stagnated. I thought maybe Seebold could fill that role but he has been snake-bit and has never quite looked comfortable (looked like he was hitting his stride at middie at the end of last year though). Maybe one of these two freshmen can be a "change of pace" player this year?

-I think we all assume Hiltz and Spallina will be starting attackmen, but the midfield is much harder to predict. Lots of impressive looking players, but no Five Star type players until you get to Kempney in two years. Maybe these attackmen end up playing more midfield than they thought.

agree with much of this. For me, there are only so many shots and scoring opportunities in any game. Fortunately, SU had many scorers on the mid lines who seemed able during any possession to find good shots last spring. I don't think scoring from Cook was as necessary or is as necessary as it might be without as many talented mids. His value showed on rides and loose balls and he often drew a pole. Let's see how he does during the next season whenever it is.

 

[Orangelax]

agree with much of this. For me, there are only so many shots and scoring opportunities in any game. Fortunately, SU had many scorers on the mid lines who seemed able during any possession to find good shots last spring. I don't think scoring from Cook was as necessary or is as necessary as it might be without as many talented mids. His value showed on rides and loose balls and he often drew a pole. Let's see how he does during the next season whenever it is.

Very good point. Cook led the team in Caused TO's at 7. Wonder how many of those 7 CT's led to goals?

 

[wgdsr]

Assuming Hiltz , Spallina, Scanlan play out , that’s 3 years potentially of that line if we have a 21 season and Scanlan takes his 5th covid year ...
where does that leave
- Cook
- Berkman
- Ehrlbeck
- Woody
- Aburn
- Seebold
- Birtwhistle
- Leo
- Corsi
- other ? / I’m sure I’m missing at Least one

perhaps Seebold or Cook or Scanlan move to mid / but only so many spots and only one as the 4th guy in ..have to think many of these guys are transfer possibilities

is ~10 attackmen a lot for a team with 55-60 players on it?

 

[ohmilax34]

is ~10 attackmen a lot for a team with 55-60 players on it?

SU had 54 last year and 8 players listed on the roster as attack and one was Seebold who was getting 2nd middie line runs. That's 15% of the roster, which seems reasonable.

In 2021, if there's a season, SU may have more than 54 and 10 attackmen if you take off Donnelly and Nelson and add 4 freshmen (2 of which I list as possible middies). A little less than 20% seems about right. Also, they want to practice full field, so they need at least 6, and on any given day there may be injuries keeping players out.