#15 Men's Lacrosse Home vs. #5 Penn State 6PM (**$1 tix/Airing on the U**)
Michigan men's lacrosse finishes its 2023 campaign with a pair of home games, the first of which is tonight at 6PM at the State Street facility vs. the #5 ranked Penn State Nittany Lions. It's Dollar Night so tickets are only $1 if you want to check it out (not sure what the weather is like in AA today but it's snowing where I am). The game will also be airing on ESPNU.
This is a huge game for Michigan Tourney Quest 2023. It's an opportunity for a marquis win to continue building their tournament resume and better position themselves in the conference (there could be an outside chance they could climb into top 2 and get a BTT bye but don't quote me on that). Penn State is the surprise team of the year in college lacrosse, currently sitting at 7-3 with strong wins over Penn, Cornell, Yale and Hopkins. They reached the Final Four in 2019 and fell to Yale in the championship game...and then bizarrely they fell off a cliff. The Lions lost a lot of talent from that team but they curiously went 4-7 in 2021 and then 3-11(!) in 2022 and Coach Jeff Tambroni's seat started getting a little warm. No one expected them to do much this year but they're now firmly in the Top 10 and, barring a major collapse down the stretch, are a lock for the tournament.
Michigan is coming off a road loss in overtime to a tough top-10 Rutgers squad. They've been getting strong play from their faceoff unit of Nick Rowlett and Justin Wietfeldt in the past few games. And goalie Shane Carr is hitting his stride and looking like his old self. The attack has also been playing well and they'll need to continue to generate good looks for each other and middies like Jackson and Mulholland. Defensively, they've been very patient and disciplined with great positioning but they still give up the occasional soft goal.
I'm pretty excited about this game. Michigan has been playing with a different attitude this year and if that continues, they can get a big-time Top 5 win. GO BLUE!!!
A beautiful morning has turned into a cold, wet and windy afternoon. Should make for an interesting game to watch on TV and could be a fun game to participate in but not ideal for spectators in attendance. It would be nice if the could move LAX season more into the summer months.
Hot start has Michigan up 2-0 5 mins in
Timeout sets up a great goal to end the 1stQ. 4-2 M
Were both teams a bit sloppy in that first quarter, or have the turnovers being mostly weather related?
Good q - weather does not look great, I thought both teams were pretty sloppy on those ground balls and I was hoping M would come up with a few of them.
I wonder if Michigan has ever had a game in that stadium in halfway decent weather. I don't think I've ever seen a home game in 60+ degree weather and its usually much worse than that.
Crazy this is 3-score game going into the final quarter considering Michigan’s dominance at faceoffs, possession time and 2nd chance opportunities with a reset shot clock. Feels like they are letting PSU hand around.
That was a bullshit penalty call on Schreiber and Penn State ends up with a tying goal on the man-up. Kind of frustrating. Michigan has been playing pretty physical which I like but I guess they're not a great man-down team so typically they're pretty disciplined and avoid penalties which is a good thing.
Penn State's goalie has kept them in it and now the rest of the team is awake. Michigan needs to get the ball back and put together a little run to close it out. They've been the better team all game.
Outscored 5-0 in the 4th. Ouch.
Oh man, frustrating. Feels just like the Hopkins game in which Michigan was the better team for 3 quarters but couldn't finish the job. Outscored 5-0 in the 4th. They got some bad calls in the 4th too, which didn't help: officials missed two out-of-bounds calls that should've gone to Michigan and they called two bad penalties on Schreiber - one of which allowed Penn State to tie it up and seize all the momentum. Attackman Michael Boehm had a rough game and didn't score and he had a few good looks that he put right into the goalie's stick. The offense was kind of missing all-around in the 4th. But Penn State wanted the game and just took it.
Michigan gets one more shot at a big win when they host Ohio State on Friday night. GO BLUE!
EDIT: Boehm didn't score but he did crush this Penn State guy with all of his 165 lbs! Pretty good hit actually...
One step forward and two steps back for these guys it often feels like. Go Blue. Keep grinding.
Watching this on delay. The 4th quarter penalty that handed PSU the equalizer goal was bullshit. Same with the two of of bounds.
That said, M wasn't the same team in the 4th, especially after the score got tied.