The Crease Dive's College Lacrosse Weekend Recap: It Was A Bad Week To Be A Top 10 Team
(Photo via Craig Chase, Inside Lacrosse)
We probably should have figured that we’d be in for a wild 2nd weekend of the 2019 college lacrosse season when High Point got the week started by knocking off #2 Duke on Wednesday. But here we are. The season is still less than 2 weeks old and if this past weekend taught us anything, it’s that we’re in for a season filled with pure chaos. Starting off, of course, with…
Colgate Tells The Dome Gods To Take A Hike, Beat Syracuse 12-9
The first game for new Colgate head coach Matt Karweck and he takes down Syracuse in the Dome to start the season. It was just a god awful week for the ACC. First #2 Duke goes down to unranked High Point. Then that immediately gets followed up by unranked Colgate stuffing #10 Cuse in a locker and I think our guy Anish finished off this game with the final kill shot right here.
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The good news for Syracuse is at least their schedule gets easier from here. All they have up next is Albany, Army, Virginia, Hopkins, Rutgers, Duke, Notre Dame and then Hobart on April 2. So they should quickly be able to shake off that loss to Colgate…..Yikes.
Throwback Towson Bullies The Shit Out Of Hopkins, Take Down The Blue Jays 17-8
Hopkins was up 4-2 in this game after the 1st quarter. Towson is an underrated team, for sure, but they were unranked heading into this game and Hopkins was the 7th best team in the nation. So you figure 4-2 would be a good start for Hopkins in this game. I mean Towson was at home and they were wearing their throwback uniforms so you couldn’t expect Hopkins to come out and just destroy them right away. But 4-2 would be a good start and they could just keep making the gap wider as the game went on.
And then… well then Towson scored 8 unanswered goals in the 2nd quarter and Hopkins pretty much just threw in the towel.
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I mean it was getting kind of embarrassing to watch there for a little. It seemed like every time Towson had the ball on offense, it ended up in the back of the net. Terrible defense. Terrible goaltending. It was just tough to watch. Up 4-2 in the 1st quarter and end up getting outscored 15-4 in the final 3 quarters. That’s a good ol’ fashion ass kicking. I can’t imagine practice today is going to be much fun for those guys.
However, we did end up seeing the 1st career goal for the #1 ranked freshman Joey Epstein.
I imagine he’d like to forget mostly everything about that game. But this is a kid who could end up scoring a couple more hundred of these, so just remember the 1st one when he ends up getting #200.
Pat Spencer Would Very Much Like You To Know That He’s The Best Player In The Nation, Loyola Destroys Virginia 17-9
Before Saturday’s game, Virginia and Loyola had played each other to open up the season in each of the last 5 years. Four of those games had been won by Virginia and those were all 1-goal games. Considering history has a knack of repeating itself, I think the majority of people expected another close game this time around. Especially considering both teams were ranked top 10 in the nation and this could very easily end up being a matchup we see again on Memorial Day Weekend.
But then Pat Spencer happened. And he just said to hell with all of it and decided to go the fuck off. 5 goals and 2 assists for Pat Spencer on the day, 5 goals for Kevin Lindley, and then Aidan Olmstead had this absolute beauty as one of his 2 goals in the game.
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Now it’s not like Virginia played a terrible game or anything like that. And they actually ended up outshooting Loyola on the day. But Jacob Stover had 18 saves in net for Loyola on the day so between that and Loyola having the best player in the nation on their roster, it was too much for Virginia to handle. So now the opening day rivalry record is still 4-2 in favor of Virginia, but both of Loyola’s wins have been blowouts to bookend the start and end of Pat Spencer’s career. (2016 was an 11-4 win for Loyola and Pat Spencer had 2&2 in the first game of his career).
The Penn State Nittany Lions Go Off For Twenty-Seven (27) Goddamn Goals Against Robert Morris
Penn State opened the season with a 17-7 shit pumping over Villanova last weekend. In that game, Grant Ament was playing in his first game back after missing all of last season with a foot injury and popped home 3 goals and 7 assists. That’s a ton of goals for one team to score in a game and a ton of points for one player to have. So I guess you could potentially see Penn State have a bit of a hangover from that game and maybe let Robert Morris hang in this game on Saturday. Maybe come out a little sluggish and have the game end way closer than it should have been.
But apparently Penn State is on a “Fuck You” tour this season and they’re looking to destroy everybody. 17 goals in game 1 followed up with 27 games in their 2nd game of the season. I’m not a math major or anything like that but 44 goals in just 2 games is outrageous. And the craziest part about this win on Saturday was that Grant Ament only had 1 goal. In fact, 15 players on Penn State had at least a goal and 17 players total had at least a point. Mac O’keefe led the way with 5 goals and an assist but yeah, that’s not even just a “one guy got hot and we couldn’t stop him” type of ass kicking for Robert Morris. That was just Penn State coming at them in waves and with a ton of depth. I feel like that has to be some sort of record for 15 players on one team to all have at least a goal in a single game. It’s still early in the season but Penn State is here to fill the back of the net and kick in some dicks.
Have Fun Trying To Play Defense Against Denver This Year, Pios Beat Air Force 11-4
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So Denver already has my favorite shooter in college lacrosse with Ethan Walker. He’s got one of the smoothest strokes in the nation and he’s always looking to go low-to-high with that release. It’s a thing of beauty to watch, and an absolute nightmare for goalies to see. But what’s even scarier is that Denver has brought in another Canadian via the Culver Military Academy this year and it looks like Alex Simmons will be the righty counterpart to Ethan Walker out there for the Pios.
Absolutely grotesque. Canadians just play the game the right way. There’s no need for Alex Simmons here to shoot with his offhand down the alley when he can just flip his hips and bring the gas with his right. Low-to-high. Smooooooth stroke. Corner pocket. Goodnight Jim Kyte. And oh yeah, Denver just so happens to have another freshman out there who is ready to make a mockery out of Division I defenders. Here’s Ellis Geis from California, who ended up having a hat trick in his first career game.
There’s no such thing as a rebuild in Denver.
Other Highlights From The Weekend
– Bubba Fairman might want to lay low for a while. He’s probably wanted for murder. Terps get past Richmond 10-9.
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– Mount St. Mary’s dropped their first game of the season to Delaware, but this goal from Luke Frankeny is worth more than a win anyway. Pure filth.
– Big congrats to Utah for picking up their first win as an NCAA DI program. We’ll have Marcus Holman on the podcast later this week to talk about the Utes.
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