Not sure how many of you are watching the National Championship, in fact I doubt very many of you are, but this has been a really exciting game. I don’t care about either team (if it ain’t Hopkins, I don’t care, although I have a soft spot for UVA because I used to go to Jim Adams Lacrosse Clinic), but my mother detests Syracuse and is hopping mad as it goes into OT. All he had to do was just Gillman the damned ball for the clear.
And now Syracuse just won. Guess I won’t talk to mom until tomorrow when she cools off.
Comrade Darkness
What? People detest Syracuse for something?
Awesome. I feel all Dukey all of a sudden.
ChrisB
I watched it. Tough for the Cornell coach. Lots of defensive breakdowns at the end, to state the obvious. And yeah, all Cornell had to do was throw the ball to the other end.
MikeJ
IIRC, the Carthaginians didn’t care for Syracuse.
Jason
I was watching- thought it was over when Cornell scored to make it 9-6. Great game.
11th National Title!
Morfydd
Why do you care about Hopkins?
(The only game I watched in four years there was my senior year homecoming when we beat Syracuse by one. I am a heretic.)
BDeevDad
I’m tivoing for when kids go to sleep. Go Big Red!
Comrade Darkness
@MikeJ,
I completely neglected to think of that before.
Now I think we should start minting our own coins.
Martin
Nice to see that lacross hasn’t completely fallen off the map. I’ve never understood why it didn’t spread more widely as a sport. It’s hard to watch on TV because of the speed of the ball. Maybe HD solves that? I’m still stuck in the dark ages.
But I’m totally sick of football/basketball. It’s just too much. I just can’t handle sports that demand 100 hours of commentary and general TV bullshit for every hour of actual sport. Just play the game and shut the fuck up.
John Cole
@Martin: The problem for lacrosse on tv with most viewers is that unlike, soccer, baseball, football, and basketball, most people have not tried it. Most people have thrown a football and know how hard it is to accurately toss one at nfl velocity and to do so accurately. They know how hard it is to hit a 90 mph fastball. Hell, most people have gone ice skating once and can appreciate the difficulty of hockey.
But since most people have never touched a lacrosse stick, they have absolutely no idea how hard it is to do well, and they also have no idea how good those guys were today. They also have no idea how much running is involved and how in shape you have to be.
Since most people can’t appreciate what they are watching, it translates poorly into television.
Bill Belichick
Martin, you’re talking like the sport peaked. It hasn’t, it’s getting bigger all the time.
In real life I’m a UMass Grad. I love Syracuse, because even though they’re bigtime BCS in all sports and we’re mid-major, we often seem to kick the crap out of them when we play them. And that includes Lacrosse. Everyone has their own problem foe, and for some inexplicable reason we’re a burr in the Orange butt.
Ninerdave
All I know about Lacrosse, I learned from reading PaulL
kid g
Cornell alum here. I am in pain, and probably will be for a while. The end of this game was quite possibly the biggest choke job in the history of sport.
Martin
No, I’m talking like someone who moved from the northeast to SoCal, where the standard reaction is “Uh, what the hell are those guys doing with those sticks”
To live out here you’d think lacross didn’t exist, except for the occasional game you grab on ESPN. Granted, I grew up around fire drill team racing, which I don’t think exist in any capacity outside of NY.
amorphous
@John Cole: I agree completely. As someone who played crease defenseman in that lacrosse hotbed of St. Louis, MO, I can say my entire philosophy was that if I ever touched the ball it was bad. I’d let the other defensemen work the clears with the middies. I just tried to get sticks and shoulders on people and slide at the right time, and that was more than enough running.
BDeevDad
Lacrosse in HD was awesome. As another Cornell alum, the end stunk.
Deech56
Big bummer. I was at Cornell when the team won two national championships, and scored something like 27 goals against Syracuse. In pep band we had to find novel ways to count the goals (“one…two…three….we want more!”). Fibonacci series worked for a while. “Just clear the damn thing!” will now take its place next to “Wide right.” in my pantheon of heartbreak.
D-Chance.
NASCAR stops the race. The entire race. No wreck… just a Memorial Day tribute, a mid-race moment of silence in remembrance of the fallen.
J.W. Hamner
No seriously…. is John Cole saying he played for Hopkins? I always thought he was farting about with the lacrosse talk. Huh.
MikeJ
Is this a semi open thread? At the ‘rents for the holiday, with a chunk of pig smoking on the grill. Been going since 7 this am, in another three hours it might be close to done.
picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/rPGKZDDJJZ0HhVN3jk_8Tg?authkey=Gv1sRgCPGLht_I1uDGJA&feat=directli…
Pulled pork. Mmmm. I got some of Tom Douglas Ancho Molasses Porter BBQ sauce to go on it. 10 hours at 200 degrees and feed it wood chips the entire time.
And notice the hot dogs on the grill? You know what goes on those…
picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/iSTGYo0W9GViEKTZF8IvHA?authkey=Gv1sRgCPGLht_I1uDGJA&feat=directli…
Today is officially the first day of clear liquor season. I’ve so far prepared Martinis and Collinseses, and I’ve had some Pyramid hefeweizen, which is not clear but goes nicely with the lemons I cut up for lemonade. Mmmmm.
Ninerdave
Well I don’t think I’ve ever run across Lacrosse on TV.
Ted
Syracuse’s head coach, John Desko, was my next door neighbor growing up. He has two Lacrosse All-American brothers, Jeff and Dave. Great guys, all of them.
Go ‘Cuse!
geg6
All you people played lacrosse? Damn. That explains many things. The seriously craziest people I ever met were a bunch of guys from the CMU lacrosse team, way back in my undergrad days in the late 70s/early 80s. Batshit insane, every one of them. But they had great parties and were polite to us wimmenfolk when they stopped being crazy lomg enough to notice we were there. Unlike, say, the Pitt and CMU frat guys.
John Cole
@J.W. Hamner: Good lord, no. I was just raised by a fanatical Hopkins fan and it rubbed off. I still have a copy of Bob Scott’s Lacrosse on a shelf in arms reach, though.
frosty
I was at the finals last year when Syracuse beat Hopkins. Wasn’t sure who to root for until I heard the first Long Island accent bellowing in favor of Syracuse. New rule formed instantly:
Always root the opposite of anyone from New York.
Works great for Yankees and Mets games, too.
burnspbesq
@Martin:
Look around your neighborhood. Every public high school in OC south of the 55 has boy’s lax. Foothill won the unofficial CIF championship for the third straight year, beating CdM in the semis and Loyola in the finals.
burnspbesq
@kid g:
As a Duke fan, I’m feelin’ you. I’m feelin’ my kid brother even more – he’s Cornell undergrad, MBA from Duke.
It was a lousy weekend to be a Duke fan, losing to Cuse in the national semis in men’s lax, missing the final four in women’s lax for the fist time since 2004, and falling just short of getting into the NCAAs in baseball for the first time since 1961. However, Mallory Cecil followed up our national championship in women’s tennis by winning the individual singles championship earlier today.
burnspbesq
Championship Weekend in men’s lax is one of the funnest things you can do with your clothes on. D1 semis on Saturday, D2 and D3 championships on Sunday, D1 championship on Monday.
I haven’t been since 2005. It’s in Baltimore next year, at M&T Bank Stadium (the Ravens’ home field). I think we should have an official BJ meetup and tailgate after the games on Saturday. I would fly in for that.
Martin
That’s good to hear. My son isn’t out of elementary school, so I haven’t paid any attention to the H.S. We’ll check out the local school’s schedule next season.
p.a.
Pietramala has updated Scott’s book for the newer rules and equipment.
I played in middle school when there were still some varsity players using the Iroquois woodies, but STX had just come out with the plastic head, and mesh wasn’t far behind. That changed everything. I sucked- to say I’m a bad athlete is an insult to bad athletes everywhere- but ya gotta love a sport where you can hit the opposition with your stick and it’s legal.
I was there today, rooting for Cornell (that way my Bears could have said they beat the national champ this year), but they really did spit the bit.
p.a.
Looking at the posting times this thread seems dead, but John Cole, if you really like Hop go to espn360.com and watch the Hop-Brown 1st round game. Great game (bad result).
Mike P
As a UVa grad, I’m just bummed we didn’t even make the damn final this year. WTF?
WereBear
That’s was One. Awesome. Game.
Sorry about your Mom, John. She’s probably lying down with a cold cloth on her head. My sympathies.
Trish
That was a great game. I felt bad for Cornell for a few minutes until I thought they let it slip away when they were up by 3 and thinking they had it won. My son plays lacrosse in Orange County, he had an intradistrict transfer and played at Foothill last year, but wanted to go to high school with his neighborhood friends and where his sisters went. He went to Tustin, no coach, no team, my husband coached a very diverse team of novices. Nice to see some CA kids playing for Cornell. Check out our team website http://www.tustinhighlacrosse.com. I grew up in PGH and my husband in Cleveland.
burnspbesq
@Mike P:
Your defense wasn’t good enough to carry your offense when it wasn’t hitting on all cylinders. We got 31 goals on you in two games, for example. And the Bratton twins may be the most selfish players I’ve ever seen – are they allergic to the word “pass?”
Oh, and your baseball team got brutally hosed by the selection committee.
javafascist
As a perpetual underdog supporter, I felt a bit bad for the ending (what a collapse by Cornell) but Dad was a starting Middie for ‘Cuse back in the late 50s (played with Jim Brown) so that was a pretty awesome ending from our perspective.
Mrs Tilton
Umm, those wondering whether the game has peaked or is even in decline might be interested in this fact: our 16 year old son (a star middie, I don’t mind noting) watched the match on television with his teammates.
Why is that fact interesting? Because we’re in Germany, that’s why.
The game is marginal here to be sure, compared with football (“soccer”), or basketball, or even rugby (which our other son plays). But, although lacrosse got its start largely through the presence of so many GIs in Germany (most of them now departed), it has gone native. Almost all of our club’s youth team are natives, with only one ex-pat brat. Even the men’s team (my son splits his time between this and the youth team) has a significant German majority (and of the foreign players, not all are American — one is Australian!). There are no GIs any more, though some of the American players do have a US military background. The assistant coach is a New Yorker, but the head coach and team manager are German.
It will be a few years yet till the German national team face the USA in the WLC final. But the game is growing here, and elsewhere in Europe as well. You might find some unexpected teams contesting you for the silverware in 2014 or 2018…
As for my son, he’s a strong Syracuse supporter. Which will make his life interesting next year, as he’s doing a year abroad — in a Maryland high school.
SadOldVet
Although not a big Lacrosse fan, I did watch the game and was rooting for Cornell. Just because they were the underdog!
It appears that Cornell must be democrats – turning victory into defeat.
ChrisB
@Mrs Tilton: That will be an interesting year for him. Do you think he’ll be able to play or start on the varsity?
Mrs Tilton
ChrisB,
he’s clearly hoping to make the team, but well aware that standards are likely to be a lot higher in MD than in Europe. That said, he is really, really good (though I say so myself), and I think he is in with a chance.
SFAW
Mrs Tilton –
Maybe he should transfer to a school on LI. Standards are just as high as MD, but they’re less snobby about it than Maryland is.
John Cole –
Yeah, Scotty’s book is great. If I could ever get my kid interested in lax, I’d drag it out for him. The stuff in our local library (and even the local B&N) is pretty useless.
Even though the result sucked, I wish I had been able to see the game yesterday. At least I caught the Cornell/UVA semi.