After starting their season off on the right foot with a dominating 19–6 win against St. John’s last Saturday, the No. 16 Bulldogs ride the momentum into tomorrow’s contest against Albany.
In their first test of the season, the Bulldogs turned in a complete team effort against the Red Storm at Reese Stadium. Meanwhile, the Great Danes (0–2, 0–0 America East) travel to Reese Stadium looking to rebound from two losses to start the season, albeit to two formidable teams — No. 8 Syracuse and Drexel. Midfielder Matt Miller ’13 said the team is feeling good going into the match.
“It’s a great feeling, now we need to just get out and focus on the next game,” Miller said.
The Bulldogs offense was firing on all cylinders. Attackmen Matt Gibson ’12 and Brandon Mangan ’14 set the pace with four goals apiece. The Elis’ faceoff unit of Cole Yeager ’13 and Dylan Levings ’14 dominated at the X, combining for a 17–for-28 record in total. The Bulldogs defense was stifling as well, limiting a vaunted St. John’s attack unit to just six goals.
The Great Danes’ first defeat was a respectable 12–7 loss against No. 8-ranked Syracuse, although Syracuse led 10–2 after three quarters. In its next game against Drexel, Albany fell 13–8, although the Dragons came within a goal of knocking off No. 1 Virginia in their season opener Feb. 18.
In its first two games of the season Albany has outshot its opponents and taken more shots on net, although it is averaging five fewer goals per game than its opponents. The Great Danes are averaging 22.5 shots on goal per game, and Eli goalkeeper Eric Natale ’15 will likely be tested in his second collegiate start. Natale had two saves in last weekend’s contest but saw only eight shots on net as the Bulldogs’ offense controlled possession and the defense caused eight turnovers.
The Elis will once again look to control possession through the faceoff game against Albany. Yeager and Levings led the nation last year with a .659 overall winning percentage while the Great Danes’ faceoff specialists have combined to win only 22 of their 48 draws this season. In last week’s game against St. John’s, Levings was able to win several faceoffs cleanly and turn them into fast break opportunities for the Bulldogs.
Yale will also look for scoring opportunities in their man-up sets this weekend. The Great Danes have only been called for three penalties this season, but have been scored on in man-down situations three times. Midfielder Brian Mahony ’12 has one of the fastest shots in the Bulldogs’ lineup and scored two extra-man goals last week from his top-center position.
After Albany, the Bulldogs remain at home to take on nearby Sacred Heart on Tuesday before going on the road next week to take on Lehigh and No. 7 Cornell.
Tomorrow’s game begins at 1 p.m. at Reese Stadium.
The specter of last year’s season-opener against St. John’s loomed large over Reese Stadium as the fourth quarter began yesterday afternoon. But the Bulldogs scored three times in the first four minutes of the final period to snuff out another Red Storm attempted comeback, and to secure an easy 19-6 victory in their first game of the season.
“It was a little bit eerie, the same thing happened last year when we jumped out to a big lead,” defenseman Alex Moffit ’14 said. “At halftime there were definitely memories of last year’s game, and we said that we had to come out on fire in the second half and put them away.”
Attackman Brandon Mangan ’14 gave the Bulldogs a comfortable 12-5 lead with 30 seconds remaining in the third, but when St. John’s midfielder Harry Kutner’s running, 15-yard shot went in with four seconds left in the quarter the momentum on the field subtly shifted. Suddenly both teams were reminded of the five straight goals the Red Storm scored in the final period of last season’s meeting, which turned what should have been an easy victory for the Bulldogs into a tense two-point win.
The Elis were determined not to let that happen this time. Midfielder Cole Yeager ’13 won the opening face off of the fourth quarter and less than two minutes later midfielder Ryan McCarthy ’14 dodged from behind and found midfielder Matt Miller ’12, who buried his attempt from 10 yards out. A minute later when attackman Conrad Oberbeck ’15 cut towards the goal and scored on a pass from Shane Thornton, the wind droped right out St. John’s sails. St. John’s frustration was evident when Red Storm defensive midfielder Mark DiFrangia was sent to the penalty box for a late hit after Mangan’s goal with 11:17 remaining gave the Elis a commanding 15-6 lead.
Mangan and fellow attackman Matt Gibson ’12 paced the Bulldog offense with four goals and five points apiece. Gibson spent most of the afternoon spinning and tiptoeing his way around the St. John’s crease and had several attempts that missed the net by inches. He and Mangan were helped out on the attacking side of the ball by McCarthy, who wreaked havoc behind the St. John’s net and finished with one goal and three assists.
“We really played the Yale style of lacrosse that is always preached to us,” Miller said. “We won the ground ball battle, we got open shots, and we finished them. We got the ball back quickly whenever we lost it.”
The Elis also dominated at the face-off x with their midfield pair of Yeager and Dylan Levings ’14 combining to win 17 of 28 face offs. Their efforts helped Yale control possession and keep St. John’s high-powered offense quiet.
The Bulldogs’ defense was also on point in its first game of the season and held the Red Storm scoreless for the first 20 minutes of the game. St. John’s starting trio of attackmen, which last week accounted for nine goals against Holy Cross, was held to only one on Saturday. The Eli defense also forced eight turnovers and was led by defenseman Michael McCormack ’13 with four caused turnovers.
“One point of focus in practice this week was communication, and we did a really good job of doing that well and playing together as a unit,” Moffit said. “We were also ridiculous on ground balls, any time the ball hit the ground it was ours.”
The Bulldogs opened the scoring four minutes into the game on an isolation play for midfielder Greg Mahony ’12. Mahony dodged from up near the midfield line and moved the ball to McCarthy, who found Miller open from eight yards out. Miller buried his shot in the back of the net for the first goal of the Elis’ 2012 season. Yale went on to score five more goals before St. John’s finally got on the scoreboard with a man-up goal half-way through the second quarter.
Miller said the team has been waiting all year to clinch a victory in its first game.
The Red Storm, their coaches and their fans all took their frustrations out on the officiating crew throughout the game. The home team was only flagged for four penalties to St. John’s eight, although the Bulldogs also spent about twice as much time on offense as their opponents. The visitor’s emotions reached a peak with 12:15 left in the third quarter when Red Storm defenseman Kevin Cernuto was flagged for a slash and yelled at the official, provoking another one minute penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. Yale promptly capitalized on the extra-man opportunity as Mahony rifled a shot past St. John’s goalie only a few seconds after the restart.
Saturday’s contest was also the first collegiate start for freshman goalie Eric Natale ’15. Natale was rarely tested thanks to the Bulldog’s aggressive defense and efficient ball-control and finished with two saves before being taken out for Jack Meyer ’14 with 2:40 remaining in the game.
The Bulldogs are home next weekend to play Albany in a 1 p.m. game on Saturday.
Of all the talented lacrosse players in the nation, very few hail from the West Coast. But the men’s lacrosse team picked up a prize in Washington-native midfielder Gregory Mahony ’12. Mahony is a two-time All-Ivy and All-New England selection. In January, he was picked in the 2012 Major League Lacrosse Collegiate Draft by the Boston Cannons. Most recently, last week he was named a candidate for the national Lowe’s and Tewaaraton awards — two distinctions handed to the top lacrosse player in the country. The history of science and medicine major and pre-med has been a core contributor for the Bulldogs, who enter this season ranked 13th nationally in the Inside Lacrosse poll. The News sat down with Mahony to ask him about his experience playing lacrosse at Yale and his future prospects.
Q. When did you start playing lacrosse?
A. I actually didn’t start until the eighth grade, which surprises a lot of people since a lot of college recruits start around third grade and have sticks in their hands their whole life. I was really into soccer, and I was a really big baseball player, and I was playing sports so much and I got burned out. My brother saw some kids playing [lacrosse] so I just followed them to practice. Turns out, we were pretty good at it. We liked it, stuck with it and dropped our other sports to play lacrosse.
Q. Did you imagine yourself playing in college?
A. I have a pretty interesting recruiting story, not anything mainstream by any standard. I played football in high school and also played lacrosse, and I knew I wanted to play in college, and didn’t want to sit around. I had been an athlete my whole life and sports kept me going and kept me busy. I was looking at random Division III schools, and I had talked to a couple of Division I coaches for sports, and no one really showed much interest in me playing either sport in college. I was planning on walking on… It wasn’t until my senior year when I was about to graduate that we played a team from New York and the assistant coach was good friends with the assistant coach of our [Yale] team. They called me when I was just about to graduate and had already put down my deposit together for a different school to not play a sport. And they called me and said, “Listen, if you want to come to Yale, take a year off and apply again.” And so I did that, and that’s why I’m here.
Q. What did you do in your year off?
A. I played [lacrosse] in Canada before I came to Yale. They do have field lacrosse, but everyone plays box lacrosse. It’s the same equipment but in a hockey rink where they shave off all the ice so it’s a lot more physical and a lot less space. So you need a completely different skill set. … I went out there, got bruised and battered. And then I came to Yale. It wasn’t the most culturally enriching thing, but I definitely got a lot better at lacrosse.
Q. How has the team changed since your first season?
A. Our group of seniors, we’ve been on both ends of the spectrum. When we were freshmen, we [the team] were lacking out on the field and in leadership areas, and then the very next year we went around and took the Ivy League title. Within one year we had seen what it meant to win and lose games, and then took the positive attitude that is takes to win. We’ve had four years of seeing the team’s attitude get progressively better and better, and so as seniors we try to convey that attitude and those emotions to the other guys and hope that they can continue that trend. No one likes to lose.
Q. How do you balance being pre-med and playing lacrosse?
A. I knew that I wanted to do something in health care … and playing a sport just keeps my day so structured, I don’t really have the time to sit down and do nothing. When you have something always happening, you’re always on a constant schedule. It’s really helped me get through classes because I get in a working mode and can’t really get out of it. Grades go up a little bit, which is surprising to a lot of people, and I just function a lot better when I’m busy.
Q. What are your plans for the future? Do you intend to play lacrosse professionally?
A. I haven’t taken my MCAT yet, and I’ll be doing a year of research, hopefully in a clinical center or a hospital. And the way drafting works, the rosters on the teams are small, so I still have to try out and the chances are slim. But hey, if they [the Boston Cannons] really want me, I’d do it. I’d be one of the two people ever to be drafted from my home state, and so we’d be the first two professional players from Washington if we both make it. I think that’d be really cool.
Q. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
A. I just hope that I’m in a position where people need me, and I’m not just travestying through life. I’ll be a position where I can make my own decisions and hopefully impact people.
Q. What has been one of your best games in your Yale career?
A. It was last year when we played Princeton. Yale historically has had a tough time with Princeton, and its senior class is one of the top-ranked recruiting classes in the country. Even though we had done very well, it’s always been that the Princeton players get all the preseason hype. It’s nice to beat a team that has gotten all that and accolades, and to just tell them that we’ve been flying under the radar, but we’re still better than you. I remember taking a lap around the field and one of the kids saying, “You haven’t beat us and you guys will never beat us,” and then we beat them [8–7 in overtime]. It was a great game.
Q. What do you like about the team? How does it differ from other college teams?
A. We recently had a preseason scrimmage, and one of the coaches said something along the lines that we were “small in stature but deceptively physical.” I think that says a lot about us: We may not be the big time recruits or the big-time athletes, but we’re a bunch of guys who put everything on the line and scrap and play. In that sense we’re all the same, and I think that’s why we get along so well. We’re scrappy little fighters.
While the scrimmages the No. 18 Bulldogs played against Tufts and Quinnipiac this weekend were unscored, Yale’s performance showed promise as the team prepares to kick off its official season next Saturday.
Although no official statistics were kept, and the scoreboard itself showed only time, midfielder Dylan Levings ’14 said Yale outplayed both Division III Tufts and Quinnipiac. Yale’s offense moved the ball well and opened up scoring opportunities early and frequently against each opponent. The defense meanwhile effectively contained the other teams’ offenses and the Yale goalkeepers were rarely tested. Levings said the team was happy with its offensive and defensive development at this point in the season.
“We have Matt Gibson [’12], who looks good all the time, and Greg Mahoney [’12] who does too,” Levings said of the Bulldog’s top attackman and midfielder, respectively. “Our defense has been together for three years now, so they’re playing very well too.”
Both Gibson and Mahoney were recently named to the “Watch List” for the 2012 Tewaaraton Award, the honor handed out to the top lacrosse player in the country each year.
Gibson will head an attack unit that also features Brandon Mangan ’14, although Levings said the third spot is still up for grabs. Gibson was named first-team All-Ivy last season and finished second on the team in scoring with 20 goals and 36 points. Mangan started all 12 games last year as a freshman and finished the season with 11 goals.
While all three of Yale’s close defenders have started together for the past three seasons, the team has yet to decide who will fill the gap left by first-team All-New England goalkeeper Jonathan Falcone ’11. During Saturday’s game, Jack Meyer ’14, Peter Spaulding ’13 and Eric Natale ’15 all played in goal, though Meyer saw the most net time.
The Bulldogs open their season next Saturday at home against St. John’s. Levings said the team is looking forward to the matchup because the Bulldogs pulled in a narrow 10–8 victory last season.
“We faced them last year, and they played us tough,” the face-off specialist said. “We took a pretty big lead, and they battled back against us.”
Saturday’s game will mark the start of a tough season for the Bulldogs, as Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Cornell are also ranked among the top 20 teams in the country. Last year, the Elis were ranked as high as No. 14 in the country during the season and finished tied for third in the Ivy League, although they did not get a bid into the NCAA Tournament. This year, the team aims to get that bid.
“Coach [Andrew Shay] would say that we’re taking the season one day at a time and we go into every game thinking that we can win,” Levings said. “We always want to play as hard as we can and just let the chips fall where we may.”
The game is scheduled for Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at Reese Stadium.
While Ivy rivals Harvard, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania and Princeton are scheduled to take on some of Inside Lacrosse’s pre-season Top 20 teams this season, Yale will not be facing any of those fearsome opponents.
Non-conference strength of schedule is an essential part of an NCAA lacrosse team’s NCAA Tournament candidacy. Though the champion of the Ivy League postseason playoffs gets an automatic bid to the 16-team NCAA Tournament, other Ivy teams can gain at-large berths.
“[The NCAA selection committee looks] at your record, strength of schedule, and the records of the teams you’ve beat and of the teams you’ve lost to, so that’s why teams want to have top schools on their schedules,” captain Mike Pratt ’12 said.
“We tried a little harder to get some big games this year but it didn’t work out — either people didn’t want to play us or other teams didn’t have spots on their schedules for us.”
Head coach Andrew Shay said Yale often plays teams in the area because budget restrictions make it difficult to travel south to play top 20 schools such as Duke University, University of Virginia, University of Notre Dame and Villanova University. The Athletics Department sets a limit on distance the team can travel, he added, and the Bulldogs need department permission to venture beyond those limits.
“We’d like to have a few top 10 teams in there, but this year it’s not looking that way,” Shay said. “But I think it is going to be a pretty strong schedule — some of those schools are going to surprise a lot of people. It’s not something you can predict really.”
Still, other Ivy schools have found room for top opponents in their non-conference schedules. Rivals No. 14 Penn and No. 16 Princeton — who are both ranked below Yale by Inside Lacrosse — will each be taking on a handful of top 20 teams this season. No. 3 Cornell will play No. 5 University of Denver and No. 7 Syracuse University.
Coaches try to craft schedules that are not too difficult for the team to be successful but that challenge the players, Princeton head coach Chris Bates said, adding that Princeton’s schedule has not changed much from year to year. Unlike Yale, Princeton lacrosse has historically been a team to watch in the league. The Tigers were one of the most dominant teams in the sport for most of the 1990s, a decade in which Princeton and Syracuse won every NCAA championship.
“We all only have 12-14 games, so there is only so much room, and it’s got to be a good mutual fit,” Bates said.
Bates added that he might expect more teams to want to play Yale now that the Elis have gained a top 20 ranking.
But not every team seems to share this opinion. As the coaches negotiate amongst themselves to fill in their non-conference schedule, things can get political. Sometimes teams do not want to play others because a team might not have a solid reputation that season. A team’s chances of getting a committee vote into the NCAA Tournament are diminished if it loses to an unranked team but enhanced if it can pull a victory over a ranked team.
Yale, a team which has not historically gained an Inside Lacrosse ranking, is “on the rise” and “getting more hype,” according to team member Kirby Zdrill ’13. Two years ago, Yale was a co-Ivy champion, and it made the Ivy Tournament last year.
But the Bulldogs still have difficulty getting some of the more established to agree to matches.
“Our reputation is really growing, but it kind of puts us in a tight spot,” Zdrill said. “Some of the bigger teams might be scared to play us because if they lose to us, it looks really bad for them. But even if they beat us, it doesn’t look that great. We’re a really good team, but we haven’t had a great reputation in the past. So that might be why they are hesitant to schedule games with us.”
Shay added that while Yale traveled to Georgetown University last year, the Hoyas would not return the favour this year and visit Yale.
Pratt said when Georgetown dropped Yale off of its schedule, the Bulldogs struggled to fill in the spot with another team, as schedules are usually finalized one or two years in advance.
Georgetown is not ranked as a top 20 team but did receive a vote in the Inside Lacrosse poll.
“Some teams just don’t want to play you,” Shay said. Last year we went down to Georgetown, and they didn’t feel the need to return the favour….They are perennially a pretty good team, but we ended up beating them pretty good, so it’s hard to control.”
Georgetown head coach David Urick could not be reached for comment.
If top NCAA teams think they could lose to the Bulldogs, they might not want to face Yale at all, Pratt said.
Both Shay and Zdrill added that normally the top two teams in the Ivy League go on to the NCAA tournament. Three times in the past ten years, only one team has advanced, and three times the top three teams have done so. Right now, Yale is Ivy with the second highest ranking, and the Elis hope to get an NCAA bid this year.
“We don’t have the strongest schedule, but everyone in Division I is really good,” Zdrill said. “It’s all about who shows up to play that day, because anybody and beat anybody. If you take down a bigger team, people will respect you a little more. I think if we make more of a reputation for ourselves by bringing down some of the big teams, we’ll make a little more noise in the lacrosse world and hopefully get a bid.”
He noted, however, that Yale “took a little flak” from an Inside Lacrosse panellist for not putting together the most challenging schedule. Pratt added that the coaching tried its best to get the team some top 20 matches, and the team make an effort not to lose against these unranked teams, which could tarnish the Elis’ reputation and prospects for an NCAA bid.
“If we take care of business in the Ivy League then we’ll be fine for the postseason,” Pratt said. “It’s a bit of extra incentive to play as best as we can against the teams we do have.”
On March 11, Yale will take on Lehigh University, a team nominated for the top 20 that ultimately did not make the cut. Yale’s other competiors include University at Albany, Sacred Heart University, Providence College, Stony Brook University and Bryant University.
On Sunday, the Elis kicked off spring play with a preseason scrimmage against Siena at Reese Stadium. Although it was a scrimmage and no official score was tallied, captain Michael Pratt ’12 and head coach Andy Shay both said Yale outshot Siena.
Despite the freezing weather, a crowd of approximately 40 supporters from both the Bulldogs and Saints sides showed no signs of discomfort as they cheered on their teams.
Over the course of the scrimmage, Pratt, Shane Thornton ’15, Michael Lipin ’13, Gregory Mahony ’12, Matt Miller ’12, Conrad Oberbeck ’15, Matt Gibson ’12, Ryan McCarthy ’14 and Benjamin Gifford ’12 secured at least one goal apiece.
“Siena was definitely a strong team,” Pratt said. “They played in the NCAA last season, won the MAAC (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference), and, importantly, a good goalie returned. However, I am really happy that we did well overall. We played especially good offense by controlling the ball in an offensive set.”
Shay was satisfied by his team’s performance, saying it responded well to the difficult conditions. Pratt added that Cole Yeager ’13 did particularly well in faceoff.
Miller, a midfielder for the Bulldogs, said the team had good ball movement.
Heading into the scrimmage, the greatest uncertainty for the team was who would start in goal. But this area of concern did not seem to matter much in Sunday’s match. Jack Meyer ’14, one of the three goalies for the squad, played two quarters, and Peter Spaulding ’13 and Eric Natale ’15 split the other half of the game. The starting spot is still up in the air as the three grapple for the chance to earn fill the gaping hole left by the 2011 All-New England first team goalkeeper Johnathan Falcone ’11.
“All three goalies played well, but we are no further along in our decision because there were not a lot of shots taken in the scrimmages,” Shay said.
There were several unofficial practice matches in the fall, but this match was the first test against live college opponents for Yale’s freshmen.
“I was proud of Harry Kucharczyk ’15 since although he was originally recruited as a midfielder, he was able to contribute to the team’s smooth match by excelling in the defense,” Pratt said. “Thornton and Oberbeck obviously did really well by scoring goals. None of them showed nerves in their first match.”
The Elis will compete in two more scrimmages next weekend, one against Tufts and the other against Quinnipiac.
Pratt said Quinnipiac is usually a tough team to play in the preseason since its players are adept at running some exotic offenses and rides.The Elis will begin preparing some countermeasures to parry such maneuvers in this week’s practices.
The Elis are scheduled to face Division III No. 5 Tufts at 5 p.m. and Quinnipiac at 7 p.m., both at Reese Stadium. The team will play the season’s official first match on Feb. 25 against St. John’s.
The No. 18 men’s lacrosse team never trailed in a 13–8 rout of Georgetown on Saturday. The victory extends the Bulldogs win streak to five games going into the team’s regular season finale at Harvard on April 30.
While the Georgetown game will hardly improve Yale’s chances of receiving an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, Princeton’s loss to Harvard on Saturday guarantees the Bulldogs a spot in the Ivy League post-season, where they will compete for an automatic bid to the national tournament.
“Our defense did a really good job of containing their very athletic offense,” Phil Gross ’13 said. “It was a great win to take us into our last league game against Harvard.”
For the first time this season, the Elis (10–2, 3–2 Ivy) put together a complete 60 minutes of lacrosse with solid contributions coming on both sides of the field. Face-off specialist Cole Yeager ’13 dominated his four Georgetown Hoya (5–7, 2–2 Big East) opponents, winning 16 of 25 draws and grinding out 14 ground balls.
Yeager’s gritty play was only exceeded by senior stand-out goalie John Falcone ’11, who frustrated the Hoyas’ attackmen with 13 saves, including five stops from point blank. Falcone is currently in the running for the Lowe’s Senior Class Award, awarded to a top-notch graduating lacrosse player dedicated to work on the field and off, both in the classroom and in the community.
“I thought we played rally well, probably the best offensive out of the year,” Mike Sweeney ’12 said. “The defense played solid as usual, but Cole and Johnny won it for us.”
Yale’s senior-most attackmen, Brian Douglass ’11 and Matt Gibson ’12, combined for eight points in what was the best offensive effort by the Bulldogs since they crushed Presbyterian and Mercer with 22-goal performances. On the other end, Michael McCormack ’13 pick-pocketed attackers with four caused turnovers and four ground balls.
Yale led off the game with two goals coming from the midfield, before Georgetown’s Davey Emala was able to finish one low on Falcone with 7:05 left in the first quarter. The Bulldogs’ attack quickly responded by exploiting the Hoyas’ loose off-the-ball defense, with Gibson dodging from the ‘X’ to finish the quarter with a goal and an assist to Douglass. Thanks to six big saves by Falcone, the Bulldogs led 4-1 going into the second — and they never looked back.
“I was really impressed with both the offense and defense,” Douglass said. “The first half was some of the best lacrosse I’ve seen us play.”
The Hoyas struck first in the second on a low-to-high elevator shot by Travis Comeau with 12:32 left in the half. But the Bulldogs scored five of the next six goals to bury Georgetown going into the locker room at halftime. Gibson continued to get past the defense, namely on a goal in which he split two d-poles and snuck it past goalie Jack Davis just over a minute after Comeau’s finish. Fifty seconds later, midfielder Matt Miller ’12 evaded Ryan Shuler on an alley dodge that harkened back to Miller’s high school days as a St. Albans middie fighting against Shuler’s Georgetown Prep.
With Yale clicking on offense and Georgetown appearing exhausted and down-trodden, the Bulldogs were poised to put away the home team, leading 9-3 at the half. The Hoyas, unable to penetrate Yale’s close defense even when man-up, held their gray helmets low, as if they were still reeling from last week’s loss to Loyola that practically eliminated the Hoyas from post-season contention.
The second half was a back-and-forth battle with Yale responding to every Georgetown comeback attempt. Hot-handed freshman Brandon Mangan ’14 scored Yale’s only goal of the third quarter to notch his tenth of the season. Falcone, McCormack and Yale’s defense limited the Hoyas to five shots on goal in the third, two of which found the net.
In the final frame, two uncommon goal-scorers — defensive middie Michael Pratt ’12 and Yeager — found the net off of face-offs. Shuler partially made up for his defensive error against Miller with two goals to cap off a three goal run by Georgetown to close the game. But the Hoyas could not come within five goals of the Bulldogs and lost their composure as the clock approached zero. With 2:37 remaining, Georgetown defenseman Barney Ehrmann hit high on Douglass and taunted the Yale attackman all the way to a two minute penalty for unnecessary roughness.
Unfortunately for Ehrmann, his poorly executed check could do little to ease the pain of a 13–8 loss in front of a television audience.
Yale will head to Cambridge on Saturday for their final regular season Ivy League game.
While second-semester status has sapped many Yale students’ energy, the Bulldogs’ men’s lacrosse team showed no signs of senioritis as they beat Brown 10–6 at Reese Stadium on Saturday. The game was the last regular season home match for the members of the class of 2011.
After a pre-game ceremony to honor their seniors, the No. 18 Elis (8–2, 3–2) struggled early before taking control of the game in the second half. On the shoulders of attackmen Brian Douglass ’11 and Matt Gibson ’12, the Bulldog offense put nonstop pressure on Brown’s all-star goalkeeper Matt Chriss and put the Bear defense to shame with eight second-half goals.
“The defense played very well, and kept the game close when the offense was struggling in the first half,” midfielder Matt Miller ’12 said. “In the second half we played the style of lacrosse we strive for — winning ground balls and making hustle plays.”
Yale’s close defense, led by Michael McCormack’s ’13 five forced turnovers and four ground balls, as well as three big second-half saves by John Falcone ’11, prevented any shot at a late comeback from Brown (4–7, 1–3). Meanwhile, the Bulldogs greatly improved on offensive ball possession, suffering only 10 turnovers against Brown, compared with their 24 turnovers in an early-April loss to Penn.
The win brings the Bulldogs closer to a bid for the Ivy League post-season tournament, where the winner will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Yale is currently tied for second place in the conference with Penn, and only needs to maintain its spot in the top four to make the tournament. But questions still remain regarding the team’s ability to put together a 60-minute effort on both sides of the field.
“We definitely need to focus on playing the entire game,” Miller said.
Brown dominated from the opening faceoff of the first quarter, and Parker Brown put Yale in an early hole when he finished off a string of quick Brown passes with a shot that whistled over Falcone’s stick and into the top corner of the net 50 seconds into the game.
Turnovers plagued the Bulldogs in the following minutes, but the defense held strong against a sustained Bears attack. Two more shots nonetheless got by Falcone before the quarter was done, and the Elis soon found themselves in a 3–0 hole.
Douglass, the team’s leading scorer, finally put Yale on the board in the second quarter. Though Brown responded quickly, he scored again before halftime to pull the Elis within two goals. That 4–2 deficit held until the two teams returned to their locker rooms. But the Bulldogs would not let it last when play restarted.
Brandon Mangan ’14 scored just 16 seconds into the third quarter, and three more Elis soon tallied to give Yale the lead. Andrew Cordia’s ’13 fourth goal of the season tied the game at 4–4 4:25 into the half, and though the Bears retook the lead a minute later, the advantage would be its last. Greg Mahony ’12 and Michael Lipin ’13 scored within 2:05 of each other and the score remained 6–5 at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
From then on, Senior Day was all Yale. Gibson earned his first goal of the game and a spot on the highlight reel when he sprinted around the goal, jumped to get some distance over his defender, and fired home a twisting, leaping shot. His acrobatic effort made the score 7–5 and proved to be the game-winning goal.
The Bears’ Rob Schlesinger ended five minutes of scoreless play and pulled Brown within a single goal with a goal 6:46 before the final whistle. But the Bulldogs, who gave up four goals in the last two minutes of their win over Dartmouth last week, did not let the visitors take back the momentum this time. Jack Flaherty ’11 and Gibson each notched unassisted goals in the game’s final five minutes, and Yale rolled to victory.
“I’m very grateful and honored to have played with [my senior teammates] for four years and it was special to see everyone on the team contribute towards making Saturday a memorable Senior Day,” Falcone said.
The Elis travel to Bryant on Tuesday and Georgetown on Saturday for their last non-league games of the season.
Famous Iroquois lacrosse player Oren Lyons Jr. once said, “There are two times of the year that stir the blood. In the fall, for the hunt, and now for lacrosse.”
For 11 members of the No. 18 men’s lacrosse team (7-2, 2-2), tomorrow could very well be the last time they step on the Reese Stadium field with their blood stirring.
On Saturday, Yale’s seniors will go to battle against a hard-nosed Brown team that is coming off of a victory over No. 15 Penn. The Quakers beat the Bulldogs in triple overtime earlier this season and all but eliminated the Elis’ chances for an at-large bid to the NCAA playoffs. Brown holds a 34–18 record against Yale and has beaten the Elis in three of the teams’ last four meetings. The Bulldogs will almost certainly need to win their last two conference matches to secure a spot in the second annual Ivy playoffs, whose champion automatically gets an NCAA tournament berth.
Against Brown, the Bulldogs will attempt to play their first “complete” game of the season, free of lengthy scoring droughts and defensive miscues. Possibly Yale’s best team effort this spring came against Dartmouth last weekend, in a match that saw the Elis leading 9–3 with two minutes left in the fourth quarter. But penalties and a loss of focus on defense gave the home crowd a scare, as Dartmouth tallied four goals to close the game at 9–7 before eventually falling.
“We put together about 58 minutes of great lacrosse against Dartmouth, but took our foot off the pedal for the last two minutes,” midfielder Matt Miller ’12 said. “We’re almost there, but we definitely need to focus on putting teams away.”
The most consistent part of Yale’s game all season has been the performance of face-off/get-off specialists Cole Yeager ’13 and Dylan Levings ’14. The combination of Yeager and Levings leads the nation in face-off win percentage (.670).
Meanwhile, Yale’s long poles are causing their own commotion, causing an average of 11.56 turnovers per game. Close defenseman Michael McCormack ’13 and captain and long stick middie Pat Coleman ’11 have each showcased their slick stick-checking abilities by forcing 2.33 turnovers per game, putting them in a tie for fifth-most caused turnovers per game in Division I men’s lacrosse.
Regardless, the Bulldog defense will need to tighten up on fundamentals before Saturday’s game, focusing on decreasing turnovers and winning every loose ball. Brown’s deadly attack, comprising Rob Schlesinger, Parker Brown and Andrew Feinberg, can and will make the Bulldogs pay for loose balls left unattended and sloppy clears in the defensive end.
“We know we have some stuff to work on,” Coleman said following Yale’s victory over Providence. “We need to get the ball off the ground when we put it there.”
Yale’s top attackman, Brian Douglass ’11, returned to true form last week with seven goals in two games to lead the Bulldogs to victory over Providence and Dartmouth. Yet on Saturday, Yale’s offense will have to contend with All-American defenseman Peter Fallon and Brown’s goalie Matt Chriss, who is sixth in the nation in save percentage.
Chriss has been at times brilliant in the cage for Brown this season, averaging 12.2 saves per game with a .607 save percentage. Yet for all the shots he blocks, Chriss gives up his fair share of rebounds and occasionally pays for his aggressive style of play, in which he “baits” attackers to shoot high by dropping his stick and bending down low in goal.
In order to beat Brown on Saturday, the Bulldogs will need to focus on possession off of the face-off, ball control, consistent sliding efforts on defense and quality shot selection. Standing on the shoulders of their seniors, the Bulldogs will need to fight hard for 60 minutes against Brown, in the hopes of making their last regular season game at Reese Stadium their best.
Yale faces off against Brown at Reese Stadium at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
First-time spectators at Reese Stadium could have been puzzled by what looked like a brick wall in Yale’s defense on Saturday.
Though it faltered late, the defense on the No. 18 men’s lacrosse team looked invincible for much of the game, and held Dartmouth scoreless for 39 consecutive minutes of the Elis’ 9–7 win. The close final score did not represent the domination by the Bulldogs (7–2, 2–2). A slew of penalties and defensive breakdowns in the last two minutes of the contest enabled the visiting Big Green (4–5, 1–2) to turn a 9–3 blowout into a respectable two-goal defeat.
“We spent the week of practice trying to get our defensive mantra back,” defenseman Peter Johnson ’13 said. “Aside from the slip at the end, we showed what we are capable of when we play as a solid unit.”
The win bumped the Bulldogs up to a second-place tie with No. 12 Penn for second place in the Ivy League. While No. 6 Cornell will almost undoubtedly finish the regular season atop the conference, the Ivy League’s automatic bid for the NCAA tournament will be decided by a four-team post-season tournament for the second consecutive year.
Given Yale’s two early-season losses to Penn and Cornell and a weak strength of schedule, it is unlikely that the Bulldogs will have a shot at an at-large bid for the tournament. But Saturday’s win versus Dartmouth puts Yale in a good position going into the last two conference matches against Brown and Harvard.
“Brown is a great team, so were going to have to have a great week of practice to prepare,” captain and long stick midfielder Pat Coleman ’11 said.
Greg Mahony ’12 opened the scoring for Yale two minutes into play when he rifled the ball past Dartmouth goalie Fergus Campbell. But it was Brian Douglass ’11 and Matt Gibson ’12 who put the large crowd of 1,876 on its feet early on with highlight-reel goals.
The Bulldogs and Big Green had been tied at 1–1 for most of the first quarter when Douglass dove for a lead pass in front of the Dartmouth goal and sent a shot past Campbell before he hit the ground. The acrobatic effort gave Yale a lead it would hold for the rest of the game.
That lead increased to as many as six goals as the Elis dominated the second and third quarters. Douglass and Gibson combined for three goals and three assists during the stretch, and Coleman ’11 showcased Yale’s dominance when he intercepted a Dartmouth pass in front of Falcone, sprinted the length of the field, and put his team up 5–3 with a blistering shot. The Elis headed to the locker room up 7–3, and increased that advantage to 9–3 after a dominant third quarter.
“We’ve been working hard recently to cut down on the turnovers and the offense did a great job of it in the game as well as our clearing game,” Coleman said.
That dominance came in large part thanks to the efforts of the defense, which held the Big Green off the scoreboard for the last 11 minutes of the second quarter and for the first 28:03 of the second half. Through the first three quarters, Dartmouth managed only 16 shots. Yale took 39.
“We showed our potential when we played as a core and slid to each other,” Johnson said. “Dartmouth is a solid offensive team who we were able to lock down six v. six.”
As Dartmouth’s offense sputtered, Douglass scored what proved to be the winning goal when he put the home team up 8–3 early in the third. He dodged from behind the goal, beat the Big Green defense to the goal line extended, and fired a jumping shot over Campbell.
Mahony scored his second goal of the day 1:05 into the final frame, and Yale stifled every Dartmouth attempt at a comeback until two minutes were left in the game. Then the Big Green came to life.
Adam Boardman scored with 1:57 to go, and the visitors scored three more times in the next 1:36 to narrow the Yale lead to 9–7. But time proved too short for a six-goal comeback, and the Elis hung on for the win.
“We played 58 minutes of good defense,” defenseman Michael McCormack ’13 said. “We need to complete a whole game and we didn’t do it [on Saturday].”
Yale will try to keep pace in the Ancient Eight when it hosts Brown on Saturday.
On Tuesday night, as Yale seniors tightened up their theses and juniors nervously anticipated secret society pre-taps, Brian Douglass ’11 and Matt Gibson ’12 led the No. 18 Yale men’s lacrosse to an 11–9 victory over Providence College.
Last Friday, the Elis let a three-goal halftime lead slip away to No. 12 Penn in a triple-overtime loss that dropped the Bulldogs (6–2, 1–2 Ivy) into a fifth-place tie with Princeton in the Ivy League. Tuesday night, the Elis recovered some of their lost momentum.
“We were really pumped to wash the bad taste out of our mouth,” defenseman Phil Gross ’13 said. “You’re only as good as your last game.”
Attackman Douglass made sure that Yale was going to finish Tuesday’s game in regulation, scoring a game-high five goals on nine shots en route to the 11–9 win. Douglass and Gibson returned to true form against Providence’s (3–6) loose zone defense, teaming up for 10 points — more than the duo has managed in the past three games combined.
While the Bulldogs once again failed to play a complete game — nearly letting the Friars tie up the game early in the fourth quarter — heads-up offensive play secured the much-needed win for Yale. The Elis hope to carry the momentum forward, as they return to conference play against Dartmouth (4–4, 1–1) on Saturday.
“Everyone’s real excited to get back into league,” captain and long stick midfielder Pat Coleman ’11 said.
Providence opened the scoring with a goal just 1:22 into the game, but Yale took over from there. The Elis scored five of the next six to build a 5–2 lead early in the second quarter, and maintained their lead until the final whistle.
Two of those goals came in the first 10 seconds of the second quarter, and both started with big face-off wins from Dylan Levings ’14. Although Levings stands 7 inches shorter than Providence counterpart Zachary Rogers, the rookie dominated the draws all game, and finished with 13 wins on 16 tries at the center X.
Buoyed by Levings’ work, the Elis dominated the possession game all night and built a solid 8–3 lead by the end of the first half. Gibson led the blue-and-white effort in the last minutes before halftime, as he scored once and had two assists on Yale’s final three goals.
“Providence you can always count on to run the zone,” midfielder Matt Miller ’12 said. “It’s all about the plays you run and how you execute them. We just ran them well today.”
But the Elis could not maintain their first half momentum when the two teams came back out of the locker room. Providence attackman Jake Nolan set the tone for the second half with an early goal, and the Friars began chipping away at the Yale lead. Less than two minutes into the fourth quarter, the Friars had cut the 8–3 Bulldog lead to 9–8.
“The defense is struggling a bit,” Gross added. “We need to work out some kinks in order for us to continue to have success.”
But Miller came through with a big goal to end the Providence run, and the Elis held on from there. With the Friars’ defense playing in their traditional zone, the Yale attack was given plenty of room to possess in the box. In perhaps the strangest possession of the game, Douglass held on to the ball for 4:07 behind the Providence cage, before a defender finally decided to approach him.
“We were completely fine with [Providence’s zone defense],” Coleman said. “We can sit there all day.”
Douglass ended a final frame filled with long Yale possessions with his fifth goal of the day just 36 seconds before the final whistle. The Bulldogs’ three-goal lead withstood Providence’s desperate efforts in the waning seconds of the game — which included an Evan Helda goal with a single second to go — as the Elis escaped with an 11–9 win Tuesday night.
“Playing under the lights at home is great,” Kirby Zdrill ’13 said. “It makes for a really intense, exciting atmosphere and it’s always good to have strong support from the fans.”
Yale continues its home stand against Dartmouth at Reese Stadium at 2:30 pm on Saturday. The lights will not be on.
