What a weekend! Two great games and then a favorable seeding. It could have been much worse for us. If we had lost to Notre Dame, then I don’t think we even make the playoffs!
A few thoughts:
-I really feel badly for Army. We took their spot last year, and Harvard took their spot this year. I understand the RPI reasoning for taking Harvard over them (RPI of 11 over 12), but I just feel badly for them. They had a great season. College lacrosse has grown, so I think it’s time to revamp the playoff system. Either get rid of the Automatic Qualifiers or add more teams to the playoffs. The 12th best team in the country should at least make it to the playoffs. The teams that made it through AQ in weaker conferences are much less deserving
-Harvard is really good. McCool struggled in the game against them, but if you look at their goals, their shooters were getting wide open shots and ripping the corners. Props to them. I think we’re the better team though (we didn’t have Thomson last time we played them), but not by much, so we need to recreate what was successful this weekend, which was:
-valuing each possession (no silly outside shots by Rhoa, which are basically turnovers), clearing the ball well, winning the face-off battle, having great goalie play, having great long stick 1v1 defense, having timely slides on defense, not leaving a wide open player on the crease when we slide, scoring on man up and fast break opportunities, limiting penalties, attacking their SSDMs, and playing Spallina off ball/not having Spallina dodge
-I would run the offense through Hiltz and Leo by getting a SSDM switched on to them. They are the keys to our offense. Spallina is brilliant as a passer when no one is on him, but he cannot dodge, even against a SSDM, and his outside shot is below average. Set picks or through dodging and slides, get a SSDM switched on to Hiltz or Leo, and then let them start the offense.
Best possession of the game today (maybe the best possession of the season): Anderson dodges and draws a slide, Hiltz gets a SSDM switched on to him, Hiltz then dodges the SSDM and draws a slide, Hiltz passes to Spallina at X, Spallina has no one on him and the defense is spinning and Spallina uses his vision to find Anderson, then Anderson scores from a wide open outside shot. That possession highlights our best 6v6 offense: we have some players that can dodge against a SSDMs to draw a slide (Hiltz, Anderson, Hottle, Leo, and English; nobody on our team can beat a long stick defender), utilizing Spallina as a brilliant passer in man up or when he’s not being guarded, and then we have some good finishers (especially Hiltz and Thomson)
Things to work on:
-Our slides to help our SSDMs was bad against Notre Dame. It was much much better today up front, but still not good when they dodged against our SSDMs from X
-J Spallina cost us 2 goals against Notre Dame and again 2 goals to Duke today. I know we’re thin at SSDMs but I don’t think he can be trusted to be played in the playoffs. The margin of error between winning and losing is just too small for us
Let’s go Cuse!!!!
