Lax: Down Goes Purdue
On their Senior Night, the Wolverines were merciless against Purdue this Saturday, scoring a pair of goals in the first minute, and despite letting off the gas just a couple minutes into the game, never letting the Boilermakers recover. By the time the second quarter rolled around, Michigan had a 9-0 lead on their way to a 28-2 victory.
Purdue's first goal came on an empty net against a broken ride. A clearing pass for the Boilers missed its intended recipient, but rolled into the empty net. The second came long after Michigan had switched out most starters for backups and (slightly) reduced the intensity of their play.
Josh Ein led Michigan by scoring six goals, and Trevor Yealy put in five of his own. Freshman Thomas Paras scored four for himself, and also notched an assist. Brent Kirshner scored his first goal as a Wolverine. David Reinhard and Edward Ernst (pictured at right) combined to win 93.8% of their faceoffs(!). Junior Andrew Fowler played in net for the first three quarters, and freshman Conor McGee finished the game in the cage.
In all, this was such a breeze for the Wolverines, that there's almost nothing to be gained from watching it, aside from maybe which young guys get the most playing time.
I'll preview the Michigan State game in-depth later this week. The game against the Spartans will be played at East Grand Rapids High School on Saturday at 7PM.
April 19th, 2010 at 12:27 PM ^
I haven't posted in awhile, but since I assueme phjhu89 will say something about the "broken ride" goal...
From my perspective it looked like what Tim describes. A pass from one Purdue player to another that the second guy couldn't handle at midfield, and the ball simply rolled down the field into the goal. The irony is that this wasn't a broken ride so much as a case of a bad team scoring because they are bad. Had the player caught the ball, the UM players probably would have been on him quickly and taken the ball back away, as the ride is intended to do. Similar to a pass to the crease that misses everyone but gets past the goalie because he's expecting the pass to be caught.
A great crowd, including at least a hundred little kids in their lacrosse gear, got to see another total blowout. This sounds like the common refrain about football scheduling, but I wish these guys could schedule more quality opponents for home games. Tim, do the better MCLA teams not want to come to Ann Arbor? I'm assuming Coach Paul tries to get top level opponents at home. They seem to have no problem scheduling the best teams on the road, so they aren't dodging anyone.
April 19th, 2010 at 12:44 PM ^
They had a great home schedule last year (Duluth, Colorado, Colorado State, BYU), so I'm not sure exactly what the issue is. Probably just a scheduling quirk year-to-year that results in a nice schedule one year and a weak one the next.
I would guess it's more about teams not returning trips. They played at UCSB and Chapman last year, but neither one came to Ann Arbor this year. Chapman vs. Michigan would have been a great regular season game. The game at Chapman last year was televised in ESPNu and had a crowd of something like 4 or 5 thousand. You would think Chapman would want every crack at Michigan they can get.
One of the things I'm always most impressed with is what a great gameday experience the lacrosse team provides, especially considering what a cramped, fan-unfriendly facility they play in. Big crowds. Lots of kids. Very good PA announcer. Music. Promotions. Cheerleaders. I've seen the dance team there before. No concessions, which I assume is because of the facility limitations. I wish they could get the UM pep band there for a big game or two. More bleachers would be nice too, but I'm sure there's only so much they can do with what they are given.
The PA Announcer was much better last year, ime.
RAWK music at the lax games. But I am a big time lax traditionalist who hated the atmosphere at NLL games when the league first appeared. Would a move to D1 automatically get them pep band presence?
That would be very cool, and a good recruiting draw. At the moment there are only a handful of D1 lax programs that have band support. The best lax band is probably Cornell's, but the most tradition-laden (but admittedly musically challenged) is the Hopkins band.
Well, to be fair, they don't play the music DURING actual game play like they did / do? at NLL games. Cheesy. It's just during breaks and pre-game. I like it personally. I'd be a little bored if they didn't. Although, as I said, I would much prefer the hockey pep band.
Saw a Virginia game on TV a couple of weeks ago with packed stands (what an incredible atmosphere they have) and a very good pep band. I think they still had piped in music for warmups though.
Agree 100% on the Cornell band. Also on the Hopkins "band." No offense, as I see JHU in your screen name, but I don't know how even a Bluejay can enjoy that.
...I don't know that anyone other than Hopkins students and alums loves that band...but they are wonderfully obnoxious, and truly committed. Ever heard Quint Kessenich wax nostalgic for the JHU band during ESPNU broadcasts? He really sums it up. No one else in the lax world travels like they do, and it really does make a difference for the team.
I do appreciate that they only play the RAWK music during 1/4 breaks, and not during play, like the NLL. Pep band would be great!
April 21st, 2010 at 10:42 AM ^
I like the pregame music, it gets a little cheesy during in-game breaks though.
Most likely has to do with the brutal schedule they decided to start playing in '08. Not that Michigan ever had an easy schedule, but that's the year things really changed for the lacrosse team. They scheduled Arizona, ASU, BYU, Duluth, Colorado and Colorado State away. The most competitive home game (of the 4 of them) was a 20-5 win against Lindenwood. The next year, most of those teams came to Ann Arbor. This year, they repeated the same trips out to Arizona, Utah, Minnesota (not actually in MN this time), and Colorado. As someone mentioned the Oregon game should've been home but you can't pass up the opportunity they had.
It's really just about alternating home and away as is convenient for everyone's schedule. Next year, I assume Michigan will head out to Cali for their spring break again and host a lot of the teams that they played away this year.
April 19th, 2010 at 12:33 PM ^
I know this is a Michigan sports blog but everytime I see the Lax in your topic line I think to myself, what does the Los Angeles airport have to do with Michigan sports.
you're obviously not from the east coast
Born and raised in Michigan, Lacrosse is not a sport played in the Midwest really. No local groups or high schools where I grew up played it. Looks like it would be fun. I would sign my son up for it if they played it where I live now (also not east coast) but they don't.
Lacrosse is the fastest-growing sport in the Midwest. Just fyi.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:45 AM ^
Just finished looking around a bit, looks like there is some high schools in the area that play, but nothing else.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:51 PM ^
Heres a list of the high school teams in indiana. http://www.laxpower.com/update10/binboy/rating23.php
This has been covered before, but one of this biggest perennial/powerhouse HS programs in the country is about 40 minutes from Ann Arbor: Brother Rice.
April 19th, 2010 at 10:35 PM ^
I can't tell from your post if you still live in michigan or not, but if you do it should be very easy to find a lax team for your son to play on. lacrosse growth hit michigan like a hurricane, the state currently has 90 school sanctioned high school teams, and 15 club teams. if you he is at a school who dosent have a team, he can go play for any club team that he wants.
Living in Indiana now, but I will look for a club. It seems like a good sport to play, I would enjoy watching it.
April 19th, 2010 at 12:36 PM ^
I'd say the most impressive thing about the Purdue game was the CROWD!!! My son and I had to stand in line for about 15 minutes to get in. Anyone know how big the crowd was to watch the men's gymnastics team win their National Championship?
I'll leave my $0.02 in my pocket re: the first goal and the ride!
Didn't CU and CSU come to Ann Arbor last year? It seems to me that they didn't have as bad a travel schedule last year. Are these just home and homes?
April 19th, 2010 at 12:41 PM ^
Last year, the team played 9 home games. This year, they have only 4. I'm not sure exactly the reasoning behind that. I can try to find out and let you know if it's just a scheduling quirk, non-conference teams afraid to come to Ann Arbor, or what.
Re: The crowd, based on my eyeball estimates, I would say it was by far the smallest of the season. The official release from the Simon Fraser game says attendance was 1215, but I know they just guess at it, and my guess would have been there were upwards of 2k people there (not bad for a facility with capacity of 800 spectators).
April 19th, 2010 at 10:05 PM ^
My guess it's easier to schedule road games to Arizona/Colorado at the same time rather than hitting one or two at a time. I can't imagine their travel budget is that big.
It was held at West Point, and the Black Knights weren't among the 12 teams competing. I looked at the official scoresheets, but they didn't fill in the portion that has the attendance for any of the sessions.
April 19th, 2010 at 12:53 PM ^
It's exactly as Tim mentions above - it just rotates every year where some years there are great home games and others not so much. This year's Oregon game was supposed to be a home game but it got moved to Dallas to be part of the lacrosse event there.
Since we're all on the club level, it's hard for teams to consistently schedule home and home series with each other and it depends on team availability and if they can get another team to come and play to take care of the OOC requirement.
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