Lacrosse at High Point tonight

Submitted by laxalum on

High Point is a first year program, but they announced almost a year before Michigan and have two recruiting classes on campus as opposed to UM's one (Tim at greatlaxstate.com has a good write up, in case you're interested).  In some ways that gives them a developmental edge on us, but this is still the one game this year that we should be favored.  Need to rebound offensively from the Army game.  Seemed to take big leaps forward in faceoffs and ground balls, but couldn't handle Army's pressure style and turned the ball over a lot for the first time this year.  That contributed to the offensive woes on Saturday, along with a hot goalie and some poor shooting.  If we can limit turnovers and shoot well, this is probably a win.

Still good to see all of the freshmen getting so much experience.  This should pay off in the coming years.

mlax27

March 6th, 2013 at 3:10 PM ^

Interested to see how this one goes.  I'm not sure we can say we are favored to be honest.  How we looked against Marquette and how we looked against Army is such a big variance who knows what team will show up tonight.  High Point is inconsistent as well given how young they are. 

I'm hoping we can just avoid the transition and make them play us 6v6.  Teams seem to get on runs against us with their transition and I'd like to see us correct that against a team we should be able to match up with.

WolvinLA2

March 6th, 2013 at 4:44 PM ^

It's true that they have an extra recruiting class than we have, but our last club class (the guys who are sophs now) knew we were D1 before the got here (though after the committed) and likely knew they'd be playing D1 ball and might have the opportunity to earn a scholarship. Not only that, I'm sure High Point's first class is nothing special since those guys knew they'd have to sit out a year before the team started and it's a school without much cachet to begin with.

So my point is that I bet our second year guys are as good as theirs, and the fact that ours have actually played a full season of lacrosse helps too. In addition, they don't have upperclassman like Paras and JD Johnson who have played a lot of college lacrosse to help out the younger guys.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

March 6th, 2013 at 4:50 PM ^

I will say they have a pretty good goalie, being a transfer from UVA and all.  I haven't looked but I would guess they have a couple other transfers from schools higher up in the food chain.

Still, honestly, if we can't beat them, I'm not sure who we can beat.

michWolves2580

March 6th, 2013 at 6:27 PM ^

Not to be a debby downer, but I honestly don't know how people can say we should be favored against High Point. Based on results alone, (not about development or how many recruiting classes or when they found out they were going to be D1) Michigan is severely over matched. High Point lost by 2 to Delaware and beat Towson. Unfortunately, we're in for another big loss.