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Message: [QUOTE="SUlax88-09, post: 5364699, member: 9879"] Great stuff!! I’ve been saying literally the same things for a few years now, but I’m a no one on this site, so to have you write it means something. Sounds like we’re seeing the same issues with this team: inability for our attack to beat their man 1v1 and draw a slide, poor SSDM play outside of Rice, and shaky goaltending. We looked better in the first half today against Utah, but it’s Utah and then we looked bad again in the 2nd half (we scored 2 goals all 2nd half; the 2 empty net goals at the very end because Utah did a 10 man ride can be misleading). To Gait’s credit, he did play Andersen on attack in the 2nd half. Andersen looked ok (he had a good finish and a good pass that should have been an assist), but the offense didn’t look good. I would have liked to have seen Leo play some attack. Hopefully Thomson is ok because I don’t think he played at all in the 2nd half, and we really missed him. Our attack is loaded with 3 future professional box lacrosse players (actually 4 if you count Deere), which sounds great, but they all kind of do the same things. As box players, they‘re good finishers and passers, but not good dodgers. In box lacrosse, you don’t need to sprint and dodge and beat your defender 1v1 because there’s no room and also because you rely on your teammates to set moving, bone crushing, cross-check picks on your defender‘s back to free you up (box really is vicious). Field lacrosse is just a different game then box lacrosse. I‘ve been critical of Spallina ever since his first game at SU, but after watching him ‘dominate’ in box lacrosse against great players this past summer, I have to give him his flowers as a box player (but still only for box lacrosse). You need SPEED to dominate in field lacrosse, and Spallina, Hiltz, McCarthy, and Deere all look slow to me. Hiltz and Thomson are awesome finishers, so we just need someone who can dodge and create a slide, and that will unlock this offense. We really only have 2 people who can consistently beat their defenders 1v1 and either score or create a slide, and that is Rhoa and Hottel. I thought Leo was going to be ‘that guy’ for us, like a Pat Perritt, but he’s actually regressed so far this year. Rhoa has been a stud, so it was great to have him back today. If he played against Harvard, then I think we would have won that game. Hottel has been awesome! All 5’7” of him. He runs by his defenders, he shoots on the run with his right and left, and the endurance on this kid! The coaches obviously also saw Ochoa’s struggles last week because Hottel was also playing SSDM again today. Great feet! He’s also like a cheat code in the clear game with his speed. He reminds me of Matt Abbott!! Great recruiting pick up. English has the offensive skills, too, but his shooting has just been too inconsistent. The defense looked better today, but Utah’s offense wasn’t impressive. We really struggled against a great passing and shooting team like Harvard (props to them), which is surprising because that’s kind of what our defense goes up against in practice everyday (our attack). We’ll see next week if our defense learned its lesson against Harvard. McCool was better in the 1st half, but then struggled again in the 2nd half. I agree, and I would give Ippoliti a chance because I don’t think McCool is a national championship caliber goalie. Watching Maryland beat ND today made it painfully obvious how important a great goalie is (McNaney was amazing!). Outside of Manhattan, our schedule is tough the rest of the way, so we’ll find out next week against Hopkins how good we really are. We need a win against a top 5 team to prove that we’re a championship contender. This is the year to do win it all too, because nobody looks unbeatable this year. Maryland is the best team in the country, but even they‘re beatable. Go SU lax!!! [/QUOTE]

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