#13 Men's Lacrosse Hosts Harvard Today, 3PM
Michigan men's lacrosse is at home to take on Harvard at 3PM today at the State Street facility; the game will be aired on BTN+. Michigan is 7-0 and up to #13 in the polls and is coming off an 18-8 beatdown of a top-20 Delaware team last week. However, the schedule gets tougher starting today and ND is on the horizon next week to close out the non-conference schedule.
Harvard is 2-1 with wins over Fairfield and NJIT and a loss to Ohio State. It's hard to forecast them because like the rest of the Ivy League, they've pretty much been off for the last two seasons. However, they should be well-coached, especially on defense. Also, the rest of the Ivy is looking pretty tough: Cornell and Princeton are off to fast starts and Penn and Yale are also expected to be strong.
On the Michigan side, the story has been the team's offensive renaissance powered by junior attackman Josh Zawada who is still the nation's leader in points with 51. Michigan has also gotten great work on faceoffs from Nick Rowlett and excellent play in goal from Shane Carr. Hopefully they can keep it going today and notch a win over a decent Ivy League team. GO BLUE!!
I didn’t see the Delaware game but saw from the box score that Rowlett was 2/8 on faceoffs and #38 ended up taking the majority of the draws. Did he get banged up or was it similar to the Marquette game where they started with Rowlett but switched up when Michigan struggled on faceoffs before going back him?
Regardless Rowlett shined in the 2nd half of that Marquette game… he’s one tough sob.
Michigan vs. the Michigan of the East
Losing 6-9 in the 3rd
Harvard wins 14-9, somewhat disappointing loss. It looks like Harvard took a lead in the second quarter and Michigan couldn't close the gap. I'm guessing Rowlett is hurt because in the box score all the FOs were taken by Wietfeldt (60% though, not bad). It also looks like Michigan only got off 21 shots.
Kind of a bummer of a loss but M is 7-1 and can recover. And they have a big opportunity for a signature win next weekend when they head to South Bend. The Irish are scuffling at the moment and sit at 1-3, albeit against a tough schedule featuring G'town, Maryland and Ohio State. They're definitely beatable; I was able to catch some of their game vs OSU today and they didn't look particularly great. Michigan is something of a trap game for them as they play Virginia, Syracuse and Duke in the weeks afterwards. But, at the same time, they'll be desperate for a win. A win over a down Notre Dame team is always a quality victory, though so let's hope they can pull it off next week. GO BLUE!