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BearLaxTraxFax — BY JOHN NICHOLS– THE 2018 Season’s last report
BLTF 052818 BY JOHN NICHOLS–THANKS FOR ALL OF THE WORK WHICH THIS WEEKLY REPORT REQUIRES!!!
2018’s final installment of Bears Lax Trax Facts salutes the new NCAA Champs—Yale and Wesleyan. In D-I, the prognosticators largely got it right this year. The four teams at championship weekend were:
ranked 1, 2, 3, and 5 in the USILA pre-season poll,
the only teams to be ranked #1 in the USILA poll during the season
ranked 1, 2, 4, and 5 in the final USILA poll
the top four seeds in the tournament
Yale, the team ranked #1 in the final USILA poll at the end of the regular season, won their first NCAA men’s lacrosse title on Memorial Day to wrap up a thrilling season and tournament. Its been a long dry spell for the Ivy League as the ’09 Cornell team (Kevin Raesly, Landon ’07, Max Feely Landon ’07) was the last Ivy League team to play in the championship game and Princeton’s ’01 squad (sadly bereft of Bears as best as we can tell) was the last Ivy League team to win the NCAA title.
D-I
NCAA D-I MEN’S LACROSSE TOURNAMENT
#1 Maryland (Justin Shockey) 8
Duke 13
This semi-final contest bore a striking resemblance to Duke’s quarter-final win against Johns Hopkins last week. Once again Duke jumped out to an early lead, this time a 6-0 advantage, keeping Maryland off the board for the first eighteen minutes of the contest. While Hopkins worked their way back into last week’s game incrementally, Maryland used a four-goal run that started late in the second quarter and lasted until the middle of the third to pull the Terrapins within a goal at 8-7. It looked as if Duke’s impressive start would not hold up. Again, as they did against the Jays, Duke answered back, outscoring Maryland 5-1 down the stretch, knocking off the defending champs and earning their first trip to the championship game since 2014.
Justin concluded his season with an outstanding effort on face-offs. He had a slight edge in wins during Duke’s early run then Maryland tried to change things up with Austin Henningsen taking the next six which he split evenly with Duke. The Terps went back to Justin and he shone down the stretch, winning seven of eleven, including all of the faceoffs during Maryland’s come-back rally. Overall, Justinwon twelve of eighteen faceoffs and covered six ground ball
Justin (3) fully committing to a faceoff win
No Landon fan should be surprised at Justin’s success this year. He won over 55% of his faceoffs, leading the team in faceoffs taken, wins, and win percentage. His 70 ground balls also led the team and his frequent clean wins contributed to his scoring totals of four goals and two assists.
D-III
NCAA D-III MEN’S LACROSSE TOURNAMENT
Salisbury (Brian Menendez) 6
Wesleyan 8
Wesleyan jumped out to a 4-0 advantage, keeping Salisbury scoreless until the closing seconds of the first period. The Seagulls leveraged that goal with two more to cut the Cardinal’s lead to one early in the second period. Wesleyan scored four of the next five to take an 8-4 lead into the final period. Salisbury did all of the scoring in the final frame, but not enough to overcome. Wesleyan stymied the Seagull’s potent offensive attack with a disciplined zone defense which caused eleven turnovers and limited Salisbury to just 28 shots for the game.
Wesleyan earned their first NCAA D-III men’s lacrosse title with the win.
Seniors
Sean O’Brien—Bucknell
Sean picked up another honor this week as an Honorable Mention USILA All American. Sean is Landon’s first All-American since Josh Offit of Duke made the third team in 2013.
Lacrosse is not over for Sean. He was drafted by the Dallas Rattlers of Major League Lacrosse and has been signed to the team’s 25 man roster. He saw his first professional action this weekend and scored the first goal of his professional career.
Sean wrapped up his collegiate career at Bucknell with 99 career points on 87 goals and 12 assists over his four years for the Bison. With is fellow seniors Connor O’Hara (85 goals, 13 assists) and Will Sands (102 goals, 141 assists), Sean part of a potent three-man offense surge which propelled Bucknell into the national polls.
Jack Bolen—Cornell
Jack’s collegiate lacrosse career ended with Cornell’s loss to Maryland. Over the past three seasons, Jack has played in all but two of Cornell’s games. Over his four years of play for Big Red, Jack has scored eight goals and contributed one assist with the lion’s share of that production coming during his sophomore season. Jack was a three-year letterman for a Cornell program that has won two Ivy League championships and played in two NCAA tournaments over the course of his career.
Jack will be graduating from the College of Arts and Sciences with a major in government and a minor in business and then Jack’s next stop is New York City where he will be working at Credit Suisse.
Riley McTague—Hobart
Shoulder injuries and surgeries have caused Riley to have limited playing time over the course of his career at Hobart. However, he has excelled in the classroom as a Northeast Conference Honor Roll honoree each of the last two years (2018 Spring has not yet been released) as an International Relations major. Riley graduated cum laude and is looking forward to starting a career in marketing.
Sam Lynch—Johns Hopkins
Sam appeared in 25 games for the Blue Jays as a highly specialized attack, over half of those appearances coming this season. Sam had a highly specialized role complementing the Jays’ man-down by stepping onto the field to facilitate a clear and help run out the penalty when Hopkins would get possession via saves or turnovers.
During Sam’s time at Hopkins, the Jays were in the NCAA tournament all four years, making the final weekend in his freshman season. The Jays also won the Big Ten tournament in his freshman and senior years. Sam graduated with a degree in economics and will be starting a career in investment banking at Oppenheimer in Baltimore.
New Coverage Next Season: Rising Freshmen and Changes
No teams fall out of coverage and seven come on board to extend our D-I coverage to 20 teams next year
2014
Jack Falk—Duke* Jack played three years at Virginia and is in the Masters of Management Science program at the Fuqua School of Business
2017
Michael Abizaid—Utah*
Shane Corcoran—Navy
Cam James—Loyola*
Nate Buller—Penn State*
2018
Joey Epstein-Johns Hopkins
Brendan Gallagher—Dartmouth
Brett Gallagher—Dartmouth
John Geppert—Maryland
Alexander Hagerup—Fairfield*
Zach Johnson—Michigan*
Jace Menendez—Salisbury
Gilbert Sentimore—Utah*
Mo Sillah—Towson*
Drew Wellington—Bucknell
*: new school coverage
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