JeremyCuse
Renowned lacrosse analyst
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I missed most of the game live due to an internet issue (thanks Fios) but went back and watched most of it (hard watch), but from the posters here I gotta pretty good feel for what happened. First off as I noted in my abbreviated season preview, I thought Albany was going to win and win big so the end result wasn't much of a surprise. I did think we would have scored say 7-9 goals versus the three we managed.
One of the things that I think we all acknowledged going into the game was that SU needed to at least somewhat contain Ierlan. Instead he went 16-21 and SU barely had the ball. The third quarter was particularly bad, I am not sure SU had the ball more then 2-3 minutes the entire quarter. Ben Williams (when healthy) was built to battle toe to toe with Ierlan and he actually dominated him last year in the opening game. With him gone I knew we were in for trouble as Varello and Delisle are bad matchups for Ierlan and the numbers unfortunately bore that out. If Martin had been healthy I would have liked to have seen Desk give him and Garlow a few draws, you need to try and throw numbers at Ierlan especially when you don't have a Ben Williams or a Baptiste on the team. Desko was in a tough spot, don't think there was much he could do. Has to hope that next years incoming X recruits brings someone who can match up with Ierlan and or that the tole of taking so many draws for a second year in a row begins to wear him down like it did to Ben and Kelly at UNC.
Defensively I thought SU did OK/good when you consider how long they had to play defense. Nanticoke and Fields are going to get there points especially when they 75% of the possession time or whatever it was. SU did a nice job shutting down McClancy and most of the midfield but Patterson came in and did a nice job. He's a converted attackmen, not sure if he was playing middie or attack when he did his damage. I wouldn't read to much into the overall D performance, with that much possession disparity the breakdown was inevitable. Thought Nanticoke was as good as advertised, though I wonder if teams who have an outstanding LSM might start looking to put an LSM versus an excellent crease defender which is what Bomberry esentially is. Personally I would have liked to have seen Helmer get some run on him, very physical and pretty athletic. Overall I think the D continues as is, would like to see some more of Schwasnick and Sullivan at SSDM and Hutchings definitely struggled at times but the D overall has nice depth across the board and Madonna did the best he could in an impossible situation.
As for SU obviously the big issue was the offense which I think most of us assumed would struggle after they over performed the week before. Clearly this is a very young offense, I did see guys like Dordevic, Curry, Trimbolli and others get some pretty good shots that Colarusso either saved or SU hit the pipe. That said there was also way to many empty possessions where SU looked absoutely lost. I did feel like SU was trying to push tempo whenever possible so a bit like the SU fun and gun offense of old which hopefully bodes well as these team goes through the season and hopefully starts to gel. So where does SU go from here? Short of Desko getting Austin Staats a waiver to play Saturday there isn't a whole hell of a lot SU/Desko can do. However, there a few things I would like to see.
1. Dearth back down to the 2nd mid line. Of all the pre-season movement and young guys getting starting spots the Dearth 1st line promotion was the one I questioned the most. I think the talent is there but your asking a kid who split time between SSDM and the third mid line last year to suddenly jump to the 1st line without a fall ball. I am not suprised he has struggled so far, he looks to be in over his head. Desko should bump him back to the second line where he can replace Simmons or Lane. Dearth has a bright future here but I think the 1st line is a bridge to far right now
2. Bomberry back to the 1st midfield. Bomberry is a great player and a heck of a person based on that recent syracuse.com article but he is a non factor trying to play attack at this level against a good defense or at least one with a good crease defender. He needs to be bumped back to the 1st mid line to take Dearth's spot and Seebold needs to take his spot. Seebold is another Frosh but you can tell from his limited PT that he is the best option we have right now for that third attack spot. Voigt is great on man up and against a zone D but Seebold offers a better overall game at this point. Going with a starting 3 of Rehfuss, Solomon, and Seebold with Voigt rotating as the fourth attackmen is the lineup I would like to see moving forward.
3. We need to initiate more from X. Whether its Rehfuss or inverting a Dordevic or Curry SU needs to run more offense from behind the cage or form GLE. To many times on Saturday the offense started either up top or via an alley dodge and it was almost all ISO. SU HAS to get better ball movement as they don't have an elite goal scorer like a Powell or even a guy like Mariano who could just take over a game at times (See the ND game last year). SU also has to get more out of Rehfuss and Solomon, your top two attackmen and offensive threats can't have 1 pt between them in a game against ALbany. Yes I know there both still young especially Rehfuss and seeing top defenders for the first time but this team needs them to produce, period. Ditto for Trimboli, again asking a lot for a kid who was the third midfield option last year and is now drawing a LSM but he cant dissapear for a 2 game stretch and then have 4 pts like last year. This team needs some consistency out of him.
4. Shake up the second line. Lane and Simmons have taken a beating on here so I won't re-hash it but at minimum Desko needs to bump one of them and get a Lipka or Quinn or Romano on the second line. SU needs to embrace the youngsters at this point and the growing pains that come with them. Both kids clearly try hard but the results simply aren't there.
5. Honestly there isn't much else the staff can do. When you lose a Mariano and Salcido and to a lesser extent Jordan Evans and your relying on true frosh and guys who only saw limited time last year, this team was clearly going to have some offensively challenged games. At this point I hope Desko embraces making some lineup changes before its to late with this schedule the wheels could come off quickly.
6. Speaking of the schedule as I have pointed out about a half dozen times and PhatOrange as well this weekend the decision to toughen up the schedule this year looks more and more like a huge blunder everyday. I understand the rational behind but Desko had to know going into the year the potential issues this team was looking at, to add Navy and Rutgers to an already daunting schedule makes zero sense. This team really could use a very winnable game like a St. Johns or Siena coming up versus the gauntlet they will play instead. The only cupcake game left is Hobart and we all know that won't be a gimme as those guys play it like the matchup is their superbowl. Even Colgate looks like a nasty matchup with their win over Cornell this past week.
Lastly I would like to touch base on the issue of SU falling behind Albany and Desko's performance which waas brought up in multiple threads after the game. First off give Marr credit, he has done a heck of a job assembling some incredible talent most of which flew under the radar. He has this team primed to make a title run this season. That said lets remember that Albany is a team that returned nearly everyone from last season and has about a dozen seniors on it, a lot of whom play critical roles on this team. It's not an excuse but this Albany team is a battle hardened squad with a ton of senior leadership and they have the young weapons in Ierlan and Nanticoke to compliment them. As for comparing the two programs I know the easy thing is to say that Albany has passed SU by based on last Saturday's result but people need to look at the bigger picture. SU is 15-2 all time against Albany including having one the last 5 matchups. SU is a very young team that returns just about everyone next year while Albany has to replace a bevy of players. Albany has also been on the cusp of being a good time for years, even before the Thompsons got there. I would pump the brakes a bit and let the season play out and see where both teams are next year. Having a TD Ierlan is such a weapon and SU right now has absolutely no answers for him, making this game look worse then it probably would have.
All that said people rasising concerns about the program are not wrong in sounding the alarm bell. Desko and the staff have gotten way to comfortable and the era of SU sitting back and letting recruits come to them is long over. The 2013-2015 classes were disasters for offensive talent (for the most part) and one of the main reasons why SU is in the current position it is now. The last two classes and next years is back to where SU should but your still talking about Frosh and Sophmores who will have a learning curve as none of them are on the level of a Nanticoke or Sowers. SU has relied to much on transfers the last 2-3 seasons and this season for the first time they didn't bring one in and you can see the growing pains. It's going to be imperative that Desko continues with this recruiting momentum and he gets more active in getting out to these recruiting events versus sending Donahue and Rogers and Scarmo to do all of the leg work. The 2018 class looks great but 2019 is a bit of a step back but 2020 looks great from an offensive standpoint. SU has been more active form what I have seen the last year or two an nearly landed Hackler form Skaneatlas despite leaning Yale for months and months. What SU really needs is for this young team to continue to growing, for SU to continue to infuse more talent especially at the X and most importantly to get Austin Staats on the hill next year.
Looking ahead to Army this isnt really the matchup you want to see coming off the Albany game but the schedule is what it is. Obviously this is an enormous game as SU could be staring 1-3 in the face with a game at UVA on deck. Army's D is excellent, good long poles and Baretto is an elite level goalie. That said I do think that SU matches up better with Army then they do Albany. Army runs a lot of its offense through the midfield even though the two leading scorers are attackmen. If you assume Mellen can shut down Nate Jones, Armys top attackmen SU should be in good shape defensively. I wonder if Desko will be tempted to double pole the midfield in this matchup as Symmes and Glessner are the two main threats at the midfield and the three starting Army attackmen are all 5'10 or shorter so there's no obvious matchup for Bomberry. If he doesn't, then I expect Fusco will almost certainly draw Symmes. Unlike Albany, Army is going to try to take SU out with a multitude (a thousand cuts so to speak) of players versus relying on a Nanticoke and Fields to do much of the work like Albany. At the X, Albany's main guy is at 67% but the competition level has been pretty weak outside of the Rutgers game where both teams were pretty much at 50% (Army was 11-20). SU is going to need Varello to bounce back and for the offense to play a HELL of a lot better. I think the SU D will hold up fairly well but I worry a bit about the offense against Baretto. Tough game to play a week after Albany but SU needs to find away to win.
One of the things that I think we all acknowledged going into the game was that SU needed to at least somewhat contain Ierlan. Instead he went 16-21 and SU barely had the ball. The third quarter was particularly bad, I am not sure SU had the ball more then 2-3 minutes the entire quarter. Ben Williams (when healthy) was built to battle toe to toe with Ierlan and he actually dominated him last year in the opening game. With him gone I knew we were in for trouble as Varello and Delisle are bad matchups for Ierlan and the numbers unfortunately bore that out. If Martin had been healthy I would have liked to have seen Desk give him and Garlow a few draws, you need to try and throw numbers at Ierlan especially when you don't have a Ben Williams or a Baptiste on the team. Desko was in a tough spot, don't think there was much he could do. Has to hope that next years incoming X recruits brings someone who can match up with Ierlan and or that the tole of taking so many draws for a second year in a row begins to wear him down like it did to Ben and Kelly at UNC.
Defensively I thought SU did OK/good when you consider how long they had to play defense. Nanticoke and Fields are going to get there points especially when they 75% of the possession time or whatever it was. SU did a nice job shutting down McClancy and most of the midfield but Patterson came in and did a nice job. He's a converted attackmen, not sure if he was playing middie or attack when he did his damage. I wouldn't read to much into the overall D performance, with that much possession disparity the breakdown was inevitable. Thought Nanticoke was as good as advertised, though I wonder if teams who have an outstanding LSM might start looking to put an LSM versus an excellent crease defender which is what Bomberry esentially is. Personally I would have liked to have seen Helmer get some run on him, very physical and pretty athletic. Overall I think the D continues as is, would like to see some more of Schwasnick and Sullivan at SSDM and Hutchings definitely struggled at times but the D overall has nice depth across the board and Madonna did the best he could in an impossible situation.
As for SU obviously the big issue was the offense which I think most of us assumed would struggle after they over performed the week before. Clearly this is a very young offense, I did see guys like Dordevic, Curry, Trimbolli and others get some pretty good shots that Colarusso either saved or SU hit the pipe. That said there was also way to many empty possessions where SU looked absoutely lost. I did feel like SU was trying to push tempo whenever possible so a bit like the SU fun and gun offense of old which hopefully bodes well as these team goes through the season and hopefully starts to gel. So where does SU go from here? Short of Desko getting Austin Staats a waiver to play Saturday there isn't a whole hell of a lot SU/Desko can do. However, there a few things I would like to see.
1. Dearth back down to the 2nd mid line. Of all the pre-season movement and young guys getting starting spots the Dearth 1st line promotion was the one I questioned the most. I think the talent is there but your asking a kid who split time between SSDM and the third mid line last year to suddenly jump to the 1st line without a fall ball. I am not suprised he has struggled so far, he looks to be in over his head. Desko should bump him back to the second line where he can replace Simmons or Lane. Dearth has a bright future here but I think the 1st line is a bridge to far right now
2. Bomberry back to the 1st midfield. Bomberry is a great player and a heck of a person based on that recent syracuse.com article but he is a non factor trying to play attack at this level against a good defense or at least one with a good crease defender. He needs to be bumped back to the 1st mid line to take Dearth's spot and Seebold needs to take his spot. Seebold is another Frosh but you can tell from his limited PT that he is the best option we have right now for that third attack spot. Voigt is great on man up and against a zone D but Seebold offers a better overall game at this point. Going with a starting 3 of Rehfuss, Solomon, and Seebold with Voigt rotating as the fourth attackmen is the lineup I would like to see moving forward.
3. We need to initiate more from X. Whether its Rehfuss or inverting a Dordevic or Curry SU needs to run more offense from behind the cage or form GLE. To many times on Saturday the offense started either up top or via an alley dodge and it was almost all ISO. SU HAS to get better ball movement as they don't have an elite goal scorer like a Powell or even a guy like Mariano who could just take over a game at times (See the ND game last year). SU also has to get more out of Rehfuss and Solomon, your top two attackmen and offensive threats can't have 1 pt between them in a game against ALbany. Yes I know there both still young especially Rehfuss and seeing top defenders for the first time but this team needs them to produce, period. Ditto for Trimboli, again asking a lot for a kid who was the third midfield option last year and is now drawing a LSM but he cant dissapear for a 2 game stretch and then have 4 pts like last year. This team needs some consistency out of him.
4. Shake up the second line. Lane and Simmons have taken a beating on here so I won't re-hash it but at minimum Desko needs to bump one of them and get a Lipka or Quinn or Romano on the second line. SU needs to embrace the youngsters at this point and the growing pains that come with them. Both kids clearly try hard but the results simply aren't there.
5. Honestly there isn't much else the staff can do. When you lose a Mariano and Salcido and to a lesser extent Jordan Evans and your relying on true frosh and guys who only saw limited time last year, this team was clearly going to have some offensively challenged games. At this point I hope Desko embraces making some lineup changes before its to late with this schedule the wheels could come off quickly.
6. Speaking of the schedule as I have pointed out about a half dozen times and PhatOrange as well this weekend the decision to toughen up the schedule this year looks more and more like a huge blunder everyday. I understand the rational behind but Desko had to know going into the year the potential issues this team was looking at, to add Navy and Rutgers to an already daunting schedule makes zero sense. This team really could use a very winnable game like a St. Johns or Siena coming up versus the gauntlet they will play instead. The only cupcake game left is Hobart and we all know that won't be a gimme as those guys play it like the matchup is their superbowl. Even Colgate looks like a nasty matchup with their win over Cornell this past week.
Lastly I would like to touch base on the issue of SU falling behind Albany and Desko's performance which waas brought up in multiple threads after the game. First off give Marr credit, he has done a heck of a job assembling some incredible talent most of which flew under the radar. He has this team primed to make a title run this season. That said lets remember that Albany is a team that returned nearly everyone from last season and has about a dozen seniors on it, a lot of whom play critical roles on this team. It's not an excuse but this Albany team is a battle hardened squad with a ton of senior leadership and they have the young weapons in Ierlan and Nanticoke to compliment them. As for comparing the two programs I know the easy thing is to say that Albany has passed SU by based on last Saturday's result but people need to look at the bigger picture. SU is 15-2 all time against Albany including having one the last 5 matchups. SU is a very young team that returns just about everyone next year while Albany has to replace a bevy of players. Albany has also been on the cusp of being a good time for years, even before the Thompsons got there. I would pump the brakes a bit and let the season play out and see where both teams are next year. Having a TD Ierlan is such a weapon and SU right now has absolutely no answers for him, making this game look worse then it probably would have.
All that said people rasising concerns about the program are not wrong in sounding the alarm bell. Desko and the staff have gotten way to comfortable and the era of SU sitting back and letting recruits come to them is long over. The 2013-2015 classes were disasters for offensive talent (for the most part) and one of the main reasons why SU is in the current position it is now. The last two classes and next years is back to where SU should but your still talking about Frosh and Sophmores who will have a learning curve as none of them are on the level of a Nanticoke or Sowers. SU has relied to much on transfers the last 2-3 seasons and this season for the first time they didn't bring one in and you can see the growing pains. It's going to be imperative that Desko continues with this recruiting momentum and he gets more active in getting out to these recruiting events versus sending Donahue and Rogers and Scarmo to do all of the leg work. The 2018 class looks great but 2019 is a bit of a step back but 2020 looks great from an offensive standpoint. SU has been more active form what I have seen the last year or two an nearly landed Hackler form Skaneatlas despite leaning Yale for months and months. What SU really needs is for this young team to continue to growing, for SU to continue to infuse more talent especially at the X and most importantly to get Austin Staats on the hill next year.
Looking ahead to Army this isnt really the matchup you want to see coming off the Albany game but the schedule is what it is. Obviously this is an enormous game as SU could be staring 1-3 in the face with a game at UVA on deck. Army's D is excellent, good long poles and Baretto is an elite level goalie. That said I do think that SU matches up better with Army then they do Albany. Army runs a lot of its offense through the midfield even though the two leading scorers are attackmen. If you assume Mellen can shut down Nate Jones, Armys top attackmen SU should be in good shape defensively. I wonder if Desko will be tempted to double pole the midfield in this matchup as Symmes and Glessner are the two main threats at the midfield and the three starting Army attackmen are all 5'10 or shorter so there's no obvious matchup for Bomberry. If he doesn't, then I expect Fusco will almost certainly draw Symmes. Unlike Albany, Army is going to try to take SU out with a multitude (a thousand cuts so to speak) of players versus relying on a Nanticoke and Fields to do much of the work like Albany. At the X, Albany's main guy is at 67% but the competition level has been pretty weak outside of the Rutgers game where both teams were pretty much at 50% (Army was 11-20). SU is going to need Varello to bounce back and for the offense to play a HELL of a lot better. I think the SU D will hold up fairly well but I worry a bit about the offense against Baretto. Tough game to play a week after Albany but SU needs to find away to win.
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