Imagine Watching This Crease Dive Goal From The NLL This Weekend And Still Thinking Lacrosse Players Aren't Athletes
I wish I could actually line up every single commenter who ever said something along the lines of “lacrosse is for kids who couldn’t make their high school’s JV baseball team” just so I could kick them all squarely in the nuts after showing them this crease dive by the Toronto Rock’s Brock Sorenson this weekend.
Has the athleticism to take flight. Has the body control to twist and turn himself around the cage. And then has the hands to be able to tuck that ball right under the goalie’s arm and in the back of the net. But sure, tell me more about how hard it is to ground out to first. And by the way, I’m going to double down on a take here that box lacrosse is the best version of the game for television. Faster pace, not as many rules to keep up with, there’s fighting, there are ridiculous goals like this being scored almost every night. I feel like the only thing that non-lacrosse fans have to chirp box lacrosse about is how much padding the goalies wear. And to that I say you try stepping in front of a hard rubber ball that’s getting launched your way at 100 mph. We’ll see what you have to say about it after that. But yeah–box lacrosse is made for television and with the way the NLL is expanding right now, hopefully it starts to take over a little more here in the US.
And staying on the subject of ridiculous lacrosse goals from over the weekend… it was a huuuuuuuuuge weekend for the backhand in college lacrosse. Let’s just check out some of the best from Saturday. Starting off with Hofstra knocking off UNC for the 3rd straight year.
That’s just a textbook way to expose your defender right there. The SSDM has to jump over the back of the net, isn’t able to take the best angle to meet Kavanagh at GLE, and then it’s a silky smooth finish to the back of the net.
Next up we had Jakob Patterson putting on a show against Maryland in #1 Albany’s comeback win over the Terps.
The amount of snap he’s able to get on that shot even on the backhand and with a defender all over him is ridiculous. Part of that obviously has to do with stick technology and the amount of control these new meshes give players on the ball. But that’s also just getting a ton of reps in during practice. Patterson stick that off-stick hip on the backhand better than most players can regularly.
Then after that, we had a longpole get into the action when Shane Rinkus decided to go beast mode against NJIT.
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Backhand. Crease Dive. Pole Goal. Doesn’t get any better than that. Especially when you take another longpole to the cage in the process.
And then finally, we had Jake Fox going with a no-look, backhand bouncer corner pocket for Hopkins as they wax ‘Cuse at the Carrier Dome.
Hopkins was already up by 10 with less than 30 seconds to go in the game. Then Jake Fox decides to hit the Orange with one last dagger like that. So disrespectful and I love everything about it. Hopkins vs Cuse is a rivalry as old as time. You want to murder your rivals, never show them any mercy.