DII Lacrosse Game Time - a look back at Week 5 and a preview of Week 6

Intro

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of In the Creek with Danny and Kevin, a coast-to-coast discussion of deep two mental cross. I'm your co-host, Kevin Stenstrom, and with me as always is the maestro of mayhem, Danny Moran. Hey Danny. Hey Kev, what's going on, my man? How are you? Well, it's been a crazy week, as you know. I said maestro, not master of mayhem, because we've had things happening this week. So I had sudden travel. I came had to come down to Atlanta to help out with my mom who's going through some things, and luckily she's doing okay now. But I forgot to bring my audio mixer, so I don't think I'm gonna I'm gonna sound tinny or not as good as I want. You ended up not having any internet for days. That's so so we were stuck in that man for a little bit. Like, can we record? Can we record with our player spotlight? Which we couldn't, so it's just us this week, no player spotlight. We're gonna get that player on later, but it's just been a little bit crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, it was a little crazy week, you know. It's just uh that's the way it is. Came home from a beautiful week in Carolina, had five days out of town, it was beautiful, got to relax, exhale. The guys at work were laughing at me. I came in skipping and whistling on Monday morning. They were like, Look at you, you look relaxed. And I was I was I was really relaxed. And then I went to watch some games after I got home on Sunday, and my TV was kind of messed up, and and then I went to stream and it wouldn't go to stream, and it kept buffering, and it was like then it would start, and I'd watch like maybe three minutes of a game and it would stop, and then my TV would mess up, and I was like, what's going on? I thought it was my modem, maybe my router. I I and it wasn't even you. I wasn't uh no, I just rebooting things, and you know me, I'm not the tech savvy guy.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

And uh I'm like rebooting, and I start getting frustrated, and then around 10, 10:30 at night, I started getting notifications that there was problems in the area. So we couldn't get going on Monday.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

But yeah, we're this is funny. This is uh we're recording on Wednesday night. It's gonna drop tomorrow morning. I gotta do some editing when we get done with this. Shouldn't be too bad because you're gonna be silky smooth throughout this whole episode. Oh, that's right. And uh we'll go from there. It's gonna be a quick turn and we keep going. But I'll tell you again this week, Danny.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Spring is every fire. A little bird, he told me so much. He said, come on, get on the go.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

I gotta taste the spring when I was. Oh man. Gotta taste that springtime weather, Kev. It's nice in the Carolinas this time of year.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

I was in shorts and flip-flops down here on Sunday. Spring fever. Little Elvis. Yeah. Love it. I love it. And with that spring fever, like this past week, Danny. Uh, once again, a lot of close games. Six one goal games. I counted three in overtime. Before we get, and I think some of them may even be in your top ten.

Top 10 Countdown

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Top ten countdown.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Oh man, it was a good week. And this week is your top ten countdown week four, Kev. Here we go. Number one, Adelphi didn't play this week. Because they all got canceled for the snow. Thank God for spring coming. Thank God for spring coming. But they play number four, Seton Hill on Sunday this week, Kev. Number two, Tampa. Rolling, rolling. I think they might have found their stride, man. They beat number five, Meryville. They beat them down, Kev. 14 to 3. Tampa plays a really good Anderson team next, Kev. Should be a good one. Number three, St. A's finally got on a game, got a game going. And they uh knocked the shit out of Frostburg State. 15-4, man. They've really put a beating on them. Uh they were ready. How good they are. Yeah. They were ready to go. And St. A's plays Bentley tonight, Kev, as we record. As we record. Number five, Meryville. They dropped at 3-1, Kev, after that.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Number five or number four?

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Number five. Oh, number four, Seton Hill. My bad. My bad. Seton Hill, they're three and oh. They host Lake Erie tonight. And not only did they host them, they knocked the snot out of them. It was 14-3, it was the final tonight. So Seton Hill just keeps rolling along, too. Number five, Maryville Saints lost to Tampa. They got dropped a three and one and they face Westminster out in St. Louis, Kev. Yeah. Number six, Anderson. They're four-o, Kev beat Montevallo 22-16. And they're at Morris Hill next to start sack play. Number seven, LR. They didn't play. They're at 2-1, and they host number 17, Newberry, this week, Kev. Yeah. That's always a good, that's always a pretty decent game. And we're in South Atlanta Conference play. So those games mean a lot, especially with those two. So that game's going to be a little amped up, I think. Number eight, Lewis. They're looking good, man. They're looking good to me. Five and one. Spank Lake Erie, 24-6. And they host Lynn on Saturday. Lynn is taking a trip from Florida up to Lewis. Bring your Long Johns, boys. It's not the same thing. You Floridians, boys. You bring your Long Johns. It's going to be nippy. And uh, yeah, so Lewis hosts Lynn on Saturday. Uh number nine, Wingate. Beat Belmont Abbey in a really, really good game, 12-10. And they also beat Coker tonight. Beat him up pretty good, 21-9. So the Bulldogs are go to what? 3-1? 3-1. 2-1? 3-1. 3-1, I think. Yeah. Number nine. Number 10, Colorado Mesa. Haven't played for the last two weeks, Kevin. Yeah. They face Florida Southern on Thursday out in Grand Junction, Colorado. Colorado Mesa's 2-0. So that's your top 10 countdown for week four. Couple of quick scores to note. Northwest Nazarene had their first game. Kev fell a little short in their debut, losing 14-6 to you, Indy. No, to Quincy.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

And then they turned around the next day and lost 16-7 to William Jewell, but they had to go travel. Overnight? What'd they do, man? I don't know. But that's crazy. It was crazy. Tough two games for North. Welcome to the NCAA.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

That's what I say. Welcome, boys. Yeah, that's it. Welcome. All right. DeUbil. Ober Malone, 15-8. You know, DeUbil's 3-1, Kev. Aubrey? Aubrey? How do you spell it? Aubrey. Aubrey Tall Chief. Aubrey Tall Chief. Four goals in that game. St. Mike's beat RW 13-5. St. Michaels is 3-0, Kev.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Chris Davis and Braden Murphy each with three goals apiece in that game. PBA was undefeated for a while, right? They beat Lander. I know in a close game, 13-10. Noah Zimmerman high score with four goals in that game.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Well, and the other thing with that game was they were behind going into the second half. And I think maybe even in the fourth quarter. And they just shut down Lander. That's a good job by PBA. They're looking pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah. Definitely, definitely improved. And uh Malloy beat Wilmington 13-9. Brian Green with three goals. And that's just a couple of scores to note, Cap.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah, a couple others for you. Catawba beat St. Leo in overtime 11-10. We've talked about Katawba. We've also talked about St. Leo. That also shows the parody in this in this division again. That was a uh that I thought St. Leo would pull that one out and Katawba beat him. So it's a good that was great.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Catawba played really well. Uh they replay, you know what? They kept answering. Everybody, they just kept going back and forth and answering, and uh Catawba just never gave up. And you know, St. Leo's a really good team. I had I had St. Leo in that game. Yeah. I, you know, but I knew Katawba was gonna give him a game. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Oh yeah. Yeah. I didn't think Catawa's just we talked about this. We thought about it in the conference preview. We've talked about what we've seen him play.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

They are they are just much improved. They can improve every year with Coach Murphy. Another one, you talked about Coker just losing a win game, but they did beat Young Harris 13-12, another one goal game over this weekend. And then finally, in overtime, Franklin Pierce beat Dominican of New York 10-9. First win for Coach Ryan Lynch. So some other scores, yeah.

Week in Review

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah, so well, let's move in to a little bit more detail on some games. We can review. I will start off. This game happened on Friday. This was Rollins playing at Flagler. Flagler pulls it out in overtime 14-13. Exciting. Exciting game. Really good. And what's funny was it definitely was a game of runs, Danny. It was pouring rain. You know, usually when you when you see a flagler, you have a night game, a Friday night game, the stands are packed. And when I first started watching, I'm like, I did not notice the rain at first. I saw the stands not packed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I look and it's like it rained for all the way up through to the fourth quarter. You saw balls like, you know, when they they grab it in their cross, and you just see the the water spray.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Spray off. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

It was a pretty game. Yeah. The Saints offense started strong. They had great ball movement. They went up 4-0 to begin with. Rollins' offense on the same during that same time, they continued to kind of turn it over. They were playing a little bit sloppy to begin with, but they turned it around. Um, and it was 6-5 after one, Flagler. One of the key things was Trace McDonald to Ben Nyberg combination for Flagler was working. It was just a thing of beauty to watch. And the other thing to note for this game, too, was um Brady Greco at the dot for Rollins. He kept him in that game. He went 21 of 26 for 81% at the dot. That's amazing. Uh the other interesting thing I found with this game, you know, it was 8-7 at half. It was an even second quarter, uh, only four goals uh total scored, two, you know, basically two uh each. Um we had talked about this last week when we were talking about this game that Wade Lamont was steady in goal form. He only played the first half, and then they had Jonas Smith come in. Now, I missed why that actually happened. If they were they did that on purpose, if Wade was injured, what the deal was, but he split just like Rollins split again. Their goal is Nicotino was in in goal for the first half, and then Colin Seltters took over. I don't think either one of those things really was a reason for a win or a loss. It was just interesting to note. Rollins, though, they were down right there, down eight, seven at half. They come back and and score the first one in the third to tie it. They end up scoring two more to go up 10-8. That was a five-goal run. So we talk about being 4-0, then a five-goal run by Rollins to go up 10-8. But Saints do the same thing in the fourth. They they tied up a 10 with scoring two in a row. Back and forth it goes. It was back and forth until Rollins had the lead. 13-12 with 204 left. They actually, the Tars had a chance to run out the clock, but they turn it over by throwing it basically to a Saints player. So Flagler ties it up with 30 seconds left and it goes to overtime. Uh Brady Greco wins a face-off, but because of an errand errant pass again by Rollins, Flagler gets it back, and then Tracy McDonald scores on a sweeping dodge over the middle, and that's it. So there was just some. It was a well-played game. It was it was definitely a game of runs, a game of kind of momentum shifts.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

But in the end, if you look back at it, there was some just errors by Rollins that I think gave gave uh Flagler the win.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

You know, it's still kind of early in the season, Kev, and some of these teams, they're not hitting on all cylinders yet. They're still making some sloppy mistakes. But Rollins is a good team. I mean, you know, Black is a good team too.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Well, that's it. They were both good. I mean, so that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Especially in the game of lacrosse. It's such a fast game where you're dodging and you're cutting and you're stopping and you're rolling.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

And you know, I didn't I didn't stop slows it down. For me, I think it was more what it did to this to the sticks, right? What it did to the the netting. Uh that's the way I see it. I mean, there were some things there, and and it's it's just tough. What's interesting though is the stats kind of favored Rollins. Rollins had more shots. 53 to Flagler 26. Now, shots and goal, that's where Flagler made it up. They only had 26 shots, but they had 19 that went on goal. Yep. High percentage for them. Saves. Uh, that's where a big a little bit of a difference. Rollins only had five, and Flagler had nine, so it made the difference. The other one, though, interesting, this one kept Rollins in the game is turnovers. 45, I mean, ground balls. I'm sorry, ground balls. Rollins had 45 to Flagler's 21. That's a huge difference. And then face-offs kept Rollins in the game, 26 to 5. Rollins had to be a few.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

You know, like a stat like that, like the ground ball war and and the face-off war. Well, usually when you win those, and if you win them big, usually that means a W. Yeah. A lot of times. A lot of times.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

I just think Flagler was so efficient on offense when they had the ball, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

It's coaching, man. It's Duncan, man. He knows how to coach these kids. He's got a good team and he knows how to coach them. And you know what? They're gonna be a tough, tough out, I think, for the rest of the year, Flaggler, to be honest with you. I think they're gonna just w wipe up the peach belt myself.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

I think, you know. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. It's looking that way. I mean, other other teams have none of them are none of them are undefeated anymore. Flagler isn't undefeated either, but they do a tough run through through Sunshine State. Yeah, they have a lot of things. Sometimes you never know how the peach belt goes, though. You would the way you look at it right now.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

That's true, man.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

So it'll that'll be a fun one to watch in conference.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Yeah, look at you know, Vin Flaggler blew one at the end of the season last year with Peach Belt play.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Yeah, so you're right. But they're good, man. I think they're well coached. So oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Well, and I think Rollins is too. It was a very well consistent.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Yeah. So you and I both had Flaggler. Malone had he had Rollins, Bill. We got you on tape, kid. We got you on tape. He called for Rollins. So uh another really good game, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah, yeah. Well, how about uh Meryville against Tampa? Yeah, what'd you think of that game, huh? Oh, I just total domination by Tampa. We we hadn't seen it yet this year until this game. Right. And it was probably the one game I didn't think they would do that. Yeah, I I was surprised by the score. I thought I mean Tampa Tampa jumped on them early, and look at they held Meryville scoreless in the second and third quarters.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Yeah, that was huge. Um, I think the two biggest stats that sh, you know, turn out to me on this game is MP Thomas for spar for the Spartans at the dot. He was 12 for 17 at the dot. And Maryville struggled at the dot. They threw three guys out there and they were combined eight for twenty-one.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

So they struggled mightily at the dot. So um trouble face-offs spelled doom for the Maryville Saints in this game. MP Thomas was able to get possession after possession, Kev. Tommy Ortega got the Spartans rolling just two minutes into this game. Now, I said last week I wasn't sure where this offense was going. Was this the breakout game for Tampa? Because Maryville's the number five team in the country. And I think they have a really, really good defense. And we know what they can do on offense. And they've been there, done that. They are an NCAA kind of team. They don't suck. Yeah. And Tampa kind of dominated them, man. Yeah. Dominated them. Uh, like I said, Ortega got the ball rolling just two minutes into the game. McDonough, Kessel Ring scored before Wyatt Robertson got his first goal of the day for Maryville. He had three on the day, and that was the only three that Maryville had. And uh it was 4-1 Tampa after one. Second, Ortega added another one for the Spartans. Then Justin Connolly scored on a man up. Spartans led 6-1. Kesseling and Bashaw added, added more, and the onslaught was on. It was 8-1 Tampa at half. Tampa's defense only allowed eight shots in the quarter cap. Held him to zero points. Outscored him 4-0. They outscored him 4-0 in the third. More of the same in the third. And kind of let him a little bit back into the game a little bit. They scored twice Maryville in the fourth, but it was 14-3.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah, there was no doubt. There was no doubt by that point, unfortunately, you know, that they could come back. They would have had an unb had to have an unbelievable fourth quarter, which you're not going to do against Tampa's defense.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yeah, you know, and Evan Alfano, uh, the goalie for Maryville, had his career high with 12 saves. I mean, he had a great game for him. You know what I mean? So he had a lot of shots coming his way. 49 of them. Yeah. 49 shots to 32. 26 of them were on goal for the Spartans, and only 16 on goal for Maryville. They couldn't even get shots off, Kev. Yeah. Couldn't even get shots off. Uh they're kind of even in turnovers. Tampa had 16, Maryville had 14. They were kind of even on clears. 29 for 30 for Tampa, 22 for 24 for Maryville. Uh, here's the here's a big one. 43 ground balls to Maryville's 21. Uh, and two for two on the EMO for Tampa, and only one for two for Maryville. So, I mean, again, it's it's it's guys like Tommy Ortega, three goals, Jackson Bashaw. These guys are playing well, man. Two goals. Uh Connor McDonough had a good night, two goals. Yep. Justin Conley, Aaron Cho, Grant Green, Zach Friend all added a goal apiece. Conley Stone played great. He's having an all-American year, if you ask me, right now. Uh, four ground balls and one caused turnovers. Like I said, MP Thomas at the dot was 12 for 17. And Weston Schmidt had a solid game and goal again, 12 saves for Meryville. Wyatt Robertson was the man, three goal. Uh, Mickett and Moon had an assist. Uh Logan West, two ground balls and caused turnovers. Shea Rayburn, Jared Zabel, Andrew Sifstat, a combined eight for 21 on the dot. So Tampa's undefeated. Maryville drops to three and one. And uh it was it was the best game offensively for Tampa so far this year. 100%. 100%. They just dominated the game, and and Tampa looks good, man. They look good. No one's beating them. I mean, they're not world beaters, but they look good enough to keep beating everybody. They look good in this game. They look good in this game. I think that was this was kind of like a statement game for maybe Tampa. Like, hey, Maryville, you know, hey, they're talking about us over there at uh in the peace podcast. They're doubting us. We gotta come up with a good game against a good team. So they they played well and against a good Maryville team. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't hurt Maryville. It's not gonna hurt them.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

No, it's it's probably more of a I don't even say a wake-up call, but it's lessons learned, right? They played them last year in the in the semifinals, and the and they played them probably better than they did this game. And it's look, Maryville will probably be it has a good shot of being in there and in the NCAs again this year. So you just learn from that and you move on. Yeah, absolutely. But here's a game, Danny, that was a lot closer than Meryville, Tampa, and that was the Mercy Mavs against the Bentley Falcons. Bentley pulls it out nine eight. This Danny was a very physical and a very Type game. The one thing I would say is that crucial turnovers by Mercy early on kind of really hurt them. Not only early on, but at near the end of the game. It was 4-3 at half, Bentley. And to be honest, in that half, Mercy had a lot of penalties that kept them on their heels. It's not that Bentley scored on the EMO, but they couldn't generate offense. They had to be playing D the whole time. So that's what gave them, I think gave Bentley the little bit of the advantage in that first half. The other thing I'd point out that I saw, and I think it was more their second MIDI line, but Bentley, we talked about what Bentley looked like this year. They lost some good players. They're playing a lot of freshmen, and they're playing well. And they're one you play against a team like Mercy, and you hold your own as a freshman. Yeah. That means good things for Coach Murphy and his staff and his team. They they played pretty well. They held him. Um they beat a ranked team. Yeah. And and they're ranked, they're right next to each other, 14 and 15. So they were right there. Now, Bentley hadn't played yet, so that was the other thing.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Look at this game, Mercy's scored with 13 seconds left in the third to tie that five. And what what what the announcers said, and I had I was thinking the exact same thing. That game was so close it felt like whoever had the ball last wins the game. Yeah. Right? It was it was 8-8 with 245 left. Mercy wins the face-off, but they throw it away. Oh, damn. This goes back to some key mistakes, right? Now, Bentley has the ball, you know, it's like you know, 230 left. Bentley brings it down. Mercy's defense holds, and they basically run down the clock. It was basically a shot clock violation. The ball didn't the ball went out of bounds right about the same time that shot clock was gonna go off. So now the Mavs have it and they're gonna bring it down. But the Falcons D caused the turnover, and they got the ball back. Bentley got the ball back with 106 to play. They call a timeout, they work something up, and then senior Tate Fitzmort scores. This was a while. One goal to go back, go back to right at the end of the game. He scores through contact and while going down with 22 seconds left to seal the deal. Nice. All right. Okay. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he didn't have a choice as he's going down. You because he could, as you're going down, he doesn't even have any place, anybody to he's got two guys around. It's not like he's gonna be able to pass off to someone.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

But that was a good for the goalie to stop because the angle's so out of control, you know, you don't know where the ball is.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

And it was one of those snuck in, too. You know what I'm saying? Like that it just took. But it was it was a really, really close game. You didn't know who was gonna win. It's sounds like a game could have went either way. Yeah, yeah. And so some of the the difference in in stats and shots, uh Mercy had 24 to Bentley's 43. So Bentley was getting their offense going. And that goes back to probably a lot in that first half where Bentley had the possession time more. Uh Mercy had 12 saves to Bentley's eight. Turnovers were pretty close, 20 to 24, Mercy Bentley. Here's face-offs where Bentley went better. Bentley had 15 of Mercy's five. That's a big, big thing. And then, extra man, man up. Mercy went one for two. Bentley went three for seven. It's still less than 50%, but seven penalties against Mercy. You have that much time that you're playing on defense doesn't help you in the win column. Yeah, yeah. Now, so for Mercy Cole, Hunsberger, he had two goals. Jason Wilkinson had two assists. Dylan Osario, Jake Akers, Jack Akers, Dean Cott, Matt Maggiar, and Gavin Lemire all had one goal. On the Bentley side, Charlie David had three goals. Nick Bergland had one goal, three assists. Good, good day for him, dishing the dime. Alex Ria had one goal, two assists. Tate Fitzmortz had two goals and the game winner. And then Beckett Melhorn, who's one of those freshmen, one goal, one assist.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Game. So it was a really, really good game. All right. Congrats, Murph. You got a got a W on your first game of the year against a good team. All right, Coach Murphy, Bentley.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Yeah, they are. I'll tell you, it was one of those games that you was like, okay, these are really two teams that are close. And I really want to see how Bentley plays like St. A's and Pace now. You know what I'm saying? Like you just it's not enough of a litmus test to know. It would be interesting to see how that game goes tonight. Who does Bentley play next? Well, they're playing St. A's tonight as my recording. And so we'll see. Uh now Saint A's is the one that I'm I would think they'll they'll win this one out when this podcast goes live. We'll know. But uh it'll be fun to watch. Okay, let's move on. Did you watch the North Greenville Emmy Riddle game or see anything about it? I did. Another good game, Danny. Emory Riddle, though, pulls it out 17-12. Yeah, they did. It's a good game. They jumped all over him in the beginning. At the beginning. All over them. They went up. 6-1. They had a 6-0 run to end the first to go up 6-1 against North Greenville.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Yeah. But the Trailblazers scored first. Trailblazers scored first on the opening possession. Yeah. They came down, they set up their offense, and boom, they scored one. And then the Eagles were soaring.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Well, yeah. What's interesting is they they talk about an offensive juggernaut by both teams in the second quarter. They both scored five goals, ten goals in the second quarter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Yeah. Yeah. This game, this game was interesting. Um, I liked what Emory Riddle was doing. They were like, they were getting sweeps across the middle. They were coming across the top. They were running like a little crisscross. Yeah. And and one guy would keep the ball or they'd pass and he'd sweep from left to right or sweep right to left. And that play, whatever that, whatever that was doing, it was working for the for the Eagles. Uh we used to see that with the U Indy middies a lot a few years ago. And and North Greenville pulled their goalie after the first first one. Yeah, they put in freshman race Bowen. Yeah, and he had 11 saves. He had a pretty good game. But again, the Trailblazers scored first on their first possession, opened the face off on a nice shot from Aiden Sizemore, and they were on the board quick. But the Eagles went on a six-goal run and had a commanding 6-1 lead after the first Kev, like you said. And uh the Trailblazers put Bowen in goal, and NGU buried another biscuit to cut it to 6-2. Each team traded goals for the rest of the season, both scoring five goals in the second, and the Eagles had an 11-6 lead at halftime. The third quarter was the Trailblazers' turn to start to cut into the deficit a little bit. Flipping the script? Yeah. Emory Riddle found themselves in the box a lot in this quarter, and uh the Trailblazers took advantage of him. Caden Castle and Brady Saba both scored on man-ups. Then it was Tyler Slace's turn to bury one on a man-up. And then Nick Meyer buried a biscuit, and NGU was only down one at that point, 11-10. E.R. added one after that and led 12-10 going into the fourth quarter. And then Emory Riddle was able to outscore them, and the defense held up and held uh NGU to only two goals in that in that frame. And uh Emory Riddle looked very good. They looked sharp. They looked um ready. They were and and and NGU just didn't have a good day. Not that they played great or badly, they just things just didn't go their way.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Well, look, yeah. Yeah, they when it's 12-10 after three, you're thinking, okay, this is back to being a game. And then Emmy Riddle's Emmy Riddle's sophomore attack, Lucas Anthony, he scored three goals in a three-minute span to break it open to make it 15-10. He had a good game. And when that happens, Danny, I wonder how you feel as a team on the other side. Like we just climbed back in this thing and now we're back to five.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Yeah, they just took us, they just took our best shot. You know, we just gave them a right hook and they just took it right on the chin.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Because we've seen this before. You know, you climb back up, you climb back up and you're within reach, right? It takes a lot of energy to get to it. It was raining there, too. If I'm not mistaken, I think there it may have been, but then you you get to that level and someone like Anthony does something like he did, that's got to be deflating.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Yeah. And here's North Greenville. Here, man, like, you know, when we did our conference previews on paper, they looked amazing. Yeah. They were like, and now they're they fall to two and three. They might be out of the top 20 after this week. They're they are out of the top 20.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Oh, are they? I didn't see that. Yeah, they're out of the top 20 now. Emmy Riddle holds on at they are now number 20.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

So Yeah, so for Caden, uh for North Greenville, um, Caden Castle had three goals. Aiden Sizemore had two goals and three assists. Nick Meyer added three goals. Norris Hamilton and Tyler Slace each with one. Reed Harkins had a good day, three ground balls and a cause turnover. Bennett Masler, 16 for 27 at the dot. Not bad. And uh, like we talked about, Race Bowen went, uh uh had 11 saves in three quarters. Um for Emory Riddle, Lucas Anthony was the man, four goals and one assist. You know where he's from, Kev? Where is he from? He's a sophomore attackman from Bradenton, Florida. He's a hometown boy. And uh Tim Keefe had a good game, three goals and two assists for five points. He's a redshirt senior. You know where he's from? Where? He's from Bridgewater, Massachusetts, Cap. Oh, there you go. Yeah, so Gavin Young added three goals and assists. They had a bunch of guys had good games. Chris Harper had two goals and three assists. Yeah. Leo Moletto had two goals and two assists, and Kyle and Hinson each with one. Jackson Holden ninth for 15 at the dot, and Reed Kerr, 15 saves. Um North Greenville outshot him 51 to 50. That's kind of crazy, though. Yeah, that's 29 shots on goal to 28 shots on goal, 15 turnovers for Greenville, 14 for Emory Riddle, 16 for 19 on the clears for uh North Greenville, 22 for 24 for Emory Riddle, uh 33 ground balls for uh North Greenville, 25 for Emery Riddle, three for six on the EMO for North Greenville, 0 for 1. So for Emory Riddle. Yeah. Yeah, there we go. So I don't know, man. What I think North Greenville, man.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Well, here's the we talked about this several times, and we've talked about it today, we've talked about it every week. I think this is another one of the games that shows the parody. You would think, based on Emmy Riddle, I think getting a little bit of a slow start, they've had some really good games. Uh and North Greenville hasn't picked up either. I I probably would have thought picked North Greenville over Emy Riddle. And and look what it just, it's you just don't know. You don't know what's gonna happen any given day.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

I can't wait to see Emery Riddle play St. Leo. That's gonna be that's gonna be a conference game. Yeah, you know, that's gonna be a good one. So I'm kind of like surprised at North Greenville a little bit. And uh Emery Riddle's sitting at four and two right now. Yeah, they're looking pretty good. I mean, so and we have one more game, right, to watch.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Yeah, one more game, um, and that is the game that Bill Malone picked, Coach Malone picked, it was Belmont Abbey win game.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

The Wingate Belmont Abbey game. I attended that game, Kev. It had rained two days prior, and rained the day before a little bit, and that field was wet, a little slippery, a lot of guys slipping and sliding. It's a grass, it's a grass field. Yeah. Yeah, it's a grass field. So there's many, I don't think, in Division II. There's a few, but Belmont Abbey's got one of them. So now this game was a really good game. Um for me, the way I saw it, it came down to two players, one on each side, that had great games. For Belmont Abbey, it's Eddie Keelcorf in goal. He had a great game. The man was on fuego. He was on major fire. Wingate had 59 shots and 30 on goal and could only get 12 past this kid. Yeah. That's how good of a game he played. I mean, in the loss, he was outstanding. On the other side of that was Wingate's face-off kid, the new one, Nico Gottage. Yeah. He was ridiculous. 15 for 17 at the dot. Started out a little slow. Second half, went six for seven in the third quarter. It was ridiculous. He was just ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Which is what they needed in the third quarter because they were down.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Those two, those two players kept those, those, their boys in the game. In the game. Because if without them, I don't know what this game would have been like without him. But it was a really good game. Uh Belmont Abbey went out to a quick 2-0 lead, and then Wingate kind of got their stride, got three back. Jackson Grant had himself his best game as a bulldog. Um, he had three goals and an assist, but he had command of the offense. They were putting a shorty on him. He was taking him up top and just dodging on him and just making great decisions with the ball, you know? And just he had a really, really good game. Belmont Abbey answered every frickin' time. They were amazing. They played so hard.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Here's what's funny, Danny. When I watched this game, and I'll preface this by while it was streaming and I was talking with our buddy Joe Vidovnik over Facebook, messaging back and forth, which is how we got started on this whole podcast thing anyway. But uh, you know, wingate goes up, and I think they were up by like two or three, four or two, or something like that. And I thought, okay, wingate settled in. Like you said, Belmont Abbey answers the bell, right? And they were up, I think it was seven, five at half. Was it seven, five and a half that Belmont Abbey? Belmont Abbey, yeah. And so when the half comes when they come back out of half, the stream goes down. We don't know what's going on. Oh when it comes back up, Wingate's up by two goals. Yeah. And you think, what what just happened? I missed all that, and then sure enough, you think, okay, now Wingate's got that feel again. No, Belmont Abbey came back, like you said, answered the bell.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Yeah, Belmont Abbey was very good. Brendan Boshi had himself a game. He he was he was able to beat his one-on-one matchups. He he played pretty good. I don't think Quad Williams in goal had the best game for Wingate, not his best game. I think he let a couple in that he probably shouldn't have let in.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

I I saw some in the third quarter, and then I didn't know if it was because of where the sun was at that time, because it was a later game. It started at 3 30, right? Because then when he went out in the fourth quarter, he was on the other side. He made some good saves. Yeah, which he needed.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Yeah. You know? Yeah. So Wingate pulls it out 12-10 in a really, really good game. I love, like I said, what Nico Cottage was able to do at the at the dot for Wingate, and what Eddie Kilkoff did in Walla. He was he was outstanding. He was outstanding. He was digging balls out. He was he was good, man.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

There were several that I thought were gonna go in.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

So 59 shots to 44 uh in favor of Wingate. Uh 30 shots on goal to 15 in favor of Wingate. It's only seven turnovers for Wingate, which is pretty outstanding in a game like this. Uh 14 turnovers for Belmont, which I think is still pretty good, too. Yeah. Uh Wingate was a perfect 14 for 14 on the clear. 17 for 22. Little difficulty clearing a couple of times for Belmont Abbey. 38 ground balls to 25 for Belmont Abbey. Uh 0 for 4 on the EMO, and 0 for 0 on the EMO for Wingate. Now, let's discuss something that's crazy. Uh my good friend Walter Lowe went on to find out something kind of crazy. It seems that Wingate Bulldogs, the last two games, have played opponents that have had zero penalties. The last two games? Two games back to back. So my boy Walter Lowe went in and did a little research and came in. The odds of the this is what he posted, and this is great. The odds of an NCAA Division II men's lacrosse team playing two consecutive games where their opponents have zero penalties are astronomically low. So low it would be considered a once-in-a-generation statistical anomaly. In men's lacrosse, a clean game for one team is already a unicorn event. Okay. Stringing two back to back is virtually impossible in the modern era. The statistical breakdown, to understand the odds, we have to look at the frequency of zero penalty games in a single team. The average penalties. A typical Division II men's team averaged three to five, three point five to five point zero penalties per game. Yeah, it makes sense. The probability of zero based on a review of NCAA box scores from 2024 and 2025. A team that finishes with zero penalties in roughly one out of every 250 games. It's a 0.4 chance. This only usually happens in blowouts where the winning team stops being aggressive or the losing team stops contesting the ball, right? The back-to-back calculation. If the chance of an opponent of having zero penalties is 0.4, or actually 0.004, the statistical probability of it happening twice in a row is.004 times 0.004, which equals 0.000016, approximately one in 62,500. To put that in perspective, a D2 team playing a 15-game season would have to play over 4,000 years to statistically expect this to happen once. Is that insane? So, according to the statistics, we just witnessed a once-in-a-generation occurrence. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's Walter Lowe. I love it. I love it. Isn't that amazing? So I bet you a lot of coaches are going, holy shit. What is the odds of that? You know, so I just had to add that. I mean, I love it. And what what are the odds? There you go. Deadly odd. And we just witnessed it two weeks in a row. Unbelievable.

Offensive Player of the Week

SPEAKER_00 42:47

In the crease, player of the week offense. All right, Kev. Uh, our offensive player of the week. I got to give an honorable mention, though. I have to give an honorable mention. I don't I think I'm gonna do that from now on. I'm gonna give one honorable mention. Uh, my honorable mention tonight is a Tachman from Wingate University. Vinny Batrico had seven goals and one assist tonight. How about that? That's pretty awesome. Yeah. But our offensive player of the week is none other than Trace McDonald from Flagler Saints, four goals, five assists, and a game winner against Ross from the other night. Great. Unbelievable. Great job, Trace. Good job.

Defensive Players of the Week

SPEAKER_00 43:34

All right.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

In the crease, player of the week, defense. All right, Danny. Our defensive player of the week. This is amazing. I read this stat and I had to blink my eyes and figure out if it was actually true. Bentley defender Kyle Piersak. First game of the season. Only one game. 13 ground balls. Three cost turnovers. Oh man, that's quality.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

That's quality. Crazy. 13 ground balls. I wish I had a vacuum. I gotta get a vacuum. That would be good. Sound effect. A vacuum sound effect. Yeah. Wow, Kyle, great job, man, for Bentley. Great job. 13 ground balls. Excellent job, son.

Games to Watch

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Okay, now let's move on to games to watch this week. What are you looking at, Danny?

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Well, Kev, I think things are kind of moving along a little bit in the south a little bit. We're starting to get into strength. So I'm liking the Flagler at St. Leo game. Yeah. I think that's going to be a good game to watch. St. Leo coming off a stinging loss. In a game that they could have won. That they could have won. I mean, that game could have won either way. So um Flagler at St. Leo.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Who do you like? Well, this is interesting. Both have really potent offices this year, right? You just mentioned St. Leo coming off a stinging overtime loss. Flagler's at 5-2. Uh they lose to Emmy Riddle and Tampa. Two teams that are very, very good, so they have a very good record. Saints won last year, 8-7 in overtime. They've had some squeakers, though. This will be a tight game. This will be a tight game. I think I'm going to go with the St. Leo Lions at home.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

I'm going with the St. Leo Lions at home, Kev. You and I are together on this one. Um, I think coming off that loss and knowing that they could have won, and knowing that Flagler's coming in and beat them last year 8-7 in a tight one, I think they're going to be ready for the Saints. I agree. I agree. It'll be a good game. Yeah, I like that game. Who do you like?

SPEAKER_01 46:04

What game do you got going on? Okay, so another game, and this is another one in the South. This is the start of Sack play. They've already started this this Wednesday. Tonight there was a recording, but you already kind of talked about it because it was in the top ten, and that's number 17, Newberry, going to number six, Lenore Ryan. Lenore Ryan, yeah, this is a good game. Lenore Ryan is at 2-1 with his only loss to Tampa. But they've been off for two weeks because of the cancellation of uh the game with Adelphi. Newberry faces a tough Kataba team tonight. They're playing as we are recording before they go to LR. So does that help them? Or does that kind of, if Kataba plays them really tough, does that beat him up a little bit? That's an interesting take. My other thing is can the LR goalie withstand Newberry offense?

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Well, you know, again, LR's got Mancini, so Newberry's gonna have to fight for those possessions. Yeah. Um, but Newberry's pretty game-tested, man. They've been on some games, you know, lost a couple of tight ones, uh, beat Undy, went out, lost to Lewis. Um at LR, so LR in the bricks is pretty good, but they've been struggling in between goal, in between the pipes a little bit. This is gonna be. Newberry's got what it takes. They got a lot of games.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

This could almost be a pick'em game where where things are have happened. I will I'm gonna go Lenore Rhinus because they're playing between the bricks and they're playing a sack team, and they're gonna have people out in droves. Yeah. Especially if the weather's nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

All right. So what you you think you don't you think LR can really I don't know, man, because uh LR hasn't had a lot of games. No. You know, like some of the some of the SAC teams, like again, there's there's been a couple of um uh reschedules and postponements in the South, too.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

That's what I'm saying. They they have not played in two weeks, so like that's gonna be tough for LR. I I go back to three games.

SPEAKER_00 48:23

It's a lot of these teams have five, six games. Some of them, like damn, they've got seven games.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

This is a this is a pick 'em, this is a pick'em game for me, but if you put a gun to my head, I would tell you I'd I'd pick LR. That's what I'm that's where I'm going. I'm gonna take Newberry for the upset. I like it. I I I don't think I don't think you can really tell. I mean, I think that's a good that's they are more battle-tested this year. They've come off a loss from Lewis.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

Dude, Lewis is a good team, man.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

Yeah. They're a very good team.

unknown 48:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

So really good team. Newberry's gonna be ready. That's what I do know. That's what I think, too. Okay, who else are you looking at?

SPEAKER_00 49:04

I like Well, we have St. A's at Bentley. That's tonight. That's tonight.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

That's it, man. That's all I got. Oh, I got a couple others. Tampa, Tampa at Anderson, number two against number five.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Watching Tampa. Tired of watching Tampa, but that's gonna be a good game, Tim Fernandez. That'll be the top five matchups.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

The other one I'm curious about is um just Robert's Wesley and against Southern New Hampshire. Two reasons. They're playing in a neutral field, Sparks Maryland at the USA Lacrosse facility.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

And Southern New Hampshire uh is three and up. Can they keep it going? Roberts Wesleyan hasn't had the season that started off the way I thought they would, but they're a scrappy team. So I think that could be a good game. Uh-oh. Who do you like? I'm going with Snoo, as they say. I'm going with Southern New Hampshire. Me too. Southern New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

All right, Kev. We're two together now. Plit on the newberry game. Yeah.

Game of the Week

SPEAKER_01 50:49

Our game of the week. We talked about a lot of games in the South that were good games coming up, especially as they start some of that uh conference play. But here's a non-conference game in the north. Number one Adelphi against number four, Seton Hill at Seton Hill.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

Yeah. Yeah, baby. Hey, Adelphi stacked. Haven't played anybody yet. If everything would have if we didn't have the fall follow winter kill kick kicking our butts up here in the north, they would have had at least two tough games under their belt by now.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

Which they would have wanted to go. Look at they have not played Adelphi. They're both 3-0 right now. Yep. So uh Seton Hill won a close one against you, Indy. They're playing Lake Erie, though they already played. Do they play Lake Erie? Do we have that score?

SPEAKER_00 51:38

I don't.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Not at all. Okay. So they play Lake Erie tonight. Adelphi hasn't played since they played Stack St. Thomas Aquinas on 18 February.

SPEAKER_00 51:48

Right, right, yeah. They haven't played in a while, man.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

I don't know. What I mean, what do you think about and they're playing at Seton Hill. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 51:59

I like Adelphi. I just think they're too, they're too, they're good, man. I think they're too loaded, too.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

I think they're too loaded in both offense and defense.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

Yeah, their defense is ridiculous. Yeah. But uh I want I watched them play, but they played St. Thomas. It was, you know, it wasn't much of a game, you know, for for St. Thomas. They they they weren't ready for a Delphi.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

This is what I think. The Griffins are gonna have to rattle Christian Tomey in goal to win this. And Christian Tomey, if they have, if he's playing in goal again, like he has in the last few games, he's he's a seasoned goal. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

100%.

SPEAKER_01 52:41

But I I do. I give the nod to Delphi. I I can't until you know play more, you know. That's why it would have been great if they weren't canceled the then they would have been going through their gauntlet, which would have been Wingate, Lenore, Ryan, Seaton Hill, which would have been really that's really difficult.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

Yeah, it would have been three top ten ranked teams in a row. You know, three top ten teams. So yeah, I like it, Delphi again. They're number one. Until somebody could knock them off, they're pretty much going to be a favorite for me. Unless I see something crazy happen, you know. Yeah, I know I agree with that. You know what? This this rest might have been very good for Delphi because I heard a couple of the big boys were a little banged up. So it might have been a little uh maybe that helps them. Yeah. A little happiness down there in uh Delphi on Long Island, out in Garden City, because if they went down there without some of their big boys, you know, it could have been a different outcome for them. So maybe it worked out. Maybe God works in mysterious ways. Yeah, it keeps them at number one. So I think Seton Hill's gonna give them a game, though. It's not wrong. 100%. You know, they're not gonna run down. I think it's gonna be a good game and a perfect game for the game of the week. I agree.

Shout outs

SPEAKER_01 53:54

All right, Danny. Like we said, no player spotlight this week. We will have I'll keep the who the player is silent. I was excited to have him on. We'll have them later on in the season. But let's move on to shout-outs.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

Shout outs!

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Do you have any? I have one shout-out tonight, and it's from our man from St. A's got Chris Claflin. Scored his 100th point. How's that? 100 points for Chris Claflin. He's only a junior. Good job, Chris. Congratulations. It's not an easy task, and you're on a great team. Keep it up. I love it. I love it. I've got a few.

SPEAKER_01 54:34

First off, Florida Tech goalie, Jax Francisco. Damn good goalie. It's very good. Most wins in program history now, and most starts in program history. Right. Congratulations, Jax. Good job, buddy. And if you see him play, you know why. Right? I mean, he's good. There were two that came out last week after we recorded that I thought were pretty cool. Kind of single game records for two different players. I'm going to point them out. Quincy Defender Jonah Pappas, single game record for cause turnovers at seven. Wow. That's impressive. Yeah. Now you win the defender Alc score. He's good. Against Newberry, eight cause turnovers in a single game. Talk about two players that just getting after it. Went crazy. And the last one, I've got last shout-out for tonight, is to coach JB Clark, who recorded his 400th career win. Congratulations, coach. That's awesome. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing.

unknown 55:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

Are you kidding me? That's amazing. That is amazing. That is amazing. Unbelievable, coach, as we've had him on and several others. There's a lot of good coaches in deep too, which makes it really, really great for our division. But that, Danny, that's about a wrap for tonight.

SPEAKER_00 56:09

Springtime music. I love it. Love it. And that is a wrap. That's a wrap.