Michael Sowers Is A Certified Freak, Puts Up 14 Points And Snatches An Unfathomable Amount Of Ankles In The Process
The thing you need to know about Michael Sowers--besides the fact that he's better and smarter than anybody else out there on the lacrosse field at any given time--is that the kid had the most assists out of any high school lacrosse player ever. He played his high school lacrosse in the Philly area so it's not like he was out there putting up 402 career assists against a bunch of kids from Idaho who just picked up a lacrosse stick for the first time during warmups. This is some of the best high school lacrosse in the nation and he had more assists than ANYBODY. So the fact that he has the chance to climb up into the top 5 all-time in NCAA points this year shouldn't really surprise anybody.
Especially not when he's dishing out 11 assists and puts up 14 points in a February 18th game against Colgate after he had already put up 4 goals and 7 assists to start the year against Monmouth. 25 points in 2 games this season for 22. And sure, the points are awesome and everything but it's the way he does it. We are witnessing a kid who has one of the best lacrosse brains of all time and just so happens to have the feet and hands to go along with it. Nearly every single point he has, he's the one who is creating that offense. He's not loading up on garbage goals. He doesn't just have a teammate with a cannon up top that he can skip the ball to for an automatic assist. He's doing stuff on a lacrosse field that we've rarely seen since another guy wearing the number 22 for a school whose primary color is orange was out there.
He'll dodge from up top, draw the slide, pull the ball out to re-dodge the slide, and then finds someone on the backdoor with so much ease it'll make you want to vomit.
And then speaking of vomit, let's just all do ourselves a favor here and take the time to really appreciate this dodge from X. Dim the lights, break out the lotion, light a candle, and watch Michael Sowers humiliate a defenseman in a way that we thought only Mikey Powell was capable of doing.
Are you kidding me? Are. You. Kidding. Me? This poor, poor SSDM. Imagine being a short stick and getting stuck switching onto Sowers. You already know you're going to get cooked but all you can hope for is that you don't end up on his all-time highlight reel. Unfortunately for this middie from Colgate, he'll be either the first or the last clip on every Michael Sowers highlight video from now until the rest of eternity.
Hit him with the stick shift the first time and got all the separation he needed to turn the corner lefty and bury it. But instead, the other shorty just had to get involved here and it caused Sowers to do the unthinkable. He hit the stick shift again and then finished this off with the step back assist to the crease. You're watching a master at his craft here, folks. I'm pretty sure the Japanese call it "Shokunin". Michael Sowers is the Shokunin of dodging.
And again, what makes Sowers such a threat is that I can guarantee you that he knows the way that Colgate's defense operates better than they know it themselves. He knows where the slide is coming from, he knows where the 2 is coming from, he understands how the defense is going to rotate and replace each other. He knows exactly who is going to be open the moment than anyone on defense moves. He's 5 steps ahead of everybody else out there on the field. It's one thing to have the brain to know all of that, it's another thing to have the vision to find those open guys once he's unlocked the defense, but to then have the skill to pull it all off? Mastery. Pure, bonafide weapon.
Sidenote: Holy christ what an absolute shit show the start of this season has been for Colgate, huh? First they had to deal with Chris Gray making his UNC debut where he put up 4 goals and an assist. Then they had to deal with Chase Scanlan making his Syracuse debut where he put up a quick 7 goals on the day. And now they had to deal with THE Michael Sowers game. They're 0-3 on the season and have been dunked on with 3 of the best performances of the year. We're not even in March yet. Yiiiiikes.