[NU Sports] Lacrosse

[Tom Maycock]

By request from one of our esteemed list members, some belated comments on the Lacrosse game. 

I'm afraid I don't have a lot to offer, because my wife and I were out of town Saturday through Tuesday, and as luck would have it, none of the fine food and beverage establishments in Pentwater, MI that we checked with carried CBS College Sports network. Thus we were forced to "follow" the Lax game via the NUSports Twitter feed on my Blackberry. My thumb still hasn't recovered from having to punch up "Refresh" so many times. 

It was actually a pretty exciting way to follow the game--particularly when we read that NU had tied up the game late and then, moments later, when Katrina Dowd was back in after being injured. But a key turnover and some missed opportunities doomed the effort in the end. 

However exciting the Twitter feed may have been, it leaves me ill-equipped to offer any informed analysis as to what happened or why we lost, other than what can be gleaned from the Twitter comments and postgame analysis on the laxpower.com forums. 

That said, my guess going in was that Maryland was probably the slightly stronger team, just based on comparative results. Particularly as a defensive team. The (slight) advantage Maryland enjoyed in virtually all the statistical categories in that final game are probably evidence of that. 

Midway through the season, I thought our chances of repeating were not good--we just were too soft on defense and not consistent enough on offense. And that wasn't terribly surprising given the players lost to graduation and the number of young starters--I really viewed this as something of a rebuilding year going in. 

The fact that the Cats came within a whisker of a 6th title is a testament to the skill and determination of the Spencer and Dowd as the senior leaders, the developing talents of a bunch of freshmen and sophomores, and (IMO) great coaching. 

I don't know that we'll ever see the Cats reel off 5 championships in a row again, because the game of Lacrosse is expanding so quickly the competition on the field and off the field (for recruits) will just keep getting tougher. 

That said, I think there's a good chance the Cats will be a better team in the next two years than they were this year. Dowd and Spencer will be incredibly hard to replace, but the four freshmen who started down the stretch are already very good, and seemed to get better every week. 

Combine those young players, the key players who will be juniors and seniors next year, the motivation of having lost in a championship game, and whoever Amonte-Hiller has in the recruiting queue, and you should have quite a team. 

But boy, will I miss seeing Katrina-the-human-highlight-film-Dowd next year!

There'll be some fall ball games in October, and then the 2011 season will kick off next February. FYI, season tickets for Lax this year were just $35/person or $70 for a 2-adult, 3-child family pack. Games only last about 2 hours, and there is plenty of parking, making it easy to take in a game without devoting an entire day. 


Tom