Men's Lacrosse In B1G Champ. Game vs Penn State, Tonight 8PM

For the second straight year, Michigan men’s lacrosse finds themselves in the Big Ten Championship game, where they’ll face the Penn State Nittany Lions tonight at 8PM. The game will air live on the Big Ten Network. The winner claims the conference’s automatic qualifier bid into the NCAA tournament and despite beating Hopkins - ranked #2 in the country - on Thursday, Michigan still likely needs to win this one to get in. 

I got caught up in an insane amount of work this week, probably the busiest I’ve ever been in my life, and I didn’t get a chance to preview Thursday’s semifinal or get out to watch until about 7pm. It turns out this was Michigan’s best game of the season, a 10-7 takedown of Johns Hopkins, who had been on a five game winning streak having gone undefeated in the B1G in the regular season. The game followed a peculiar storyline in which Michigan started in a 6-1 hole and then just took the game over and outscored the Jays 9-1 over the final three quarters.  By the time I sat down it was 6-5 JHU and then Mikey Boehm, who had a fantastic 5-goal game, did this…(please ignore the boomer Happy Days commentary)

https://youtu.be/bmPOnmSZCgY?si=hVJSZwPJW7XQJVDA&t=453  

And then this…

https://youtu.be/bmPOnmSZCgY?si=ilRBMm3eEjQeMSOt&t=474 

So, I’ve been extremely conflicted about whether I should post a preview again. Maybe I’ve been the problem this whole time. 

Despite getting doubled up on faceoffs which is highly unusual for this team, Michigan looked strong in all phases. They played patient lockdown defense and held the nation’s best shooter to a donut (he had 4 dimes though), they got tough ground balls all over the field and most importantly, they took care of the ball and only had 9 turnovers. 

The bad news is: Penn State is strong to quite strong and have quietly had a very good season. Plus, they’re coming off an obliteration of Maryland in the semis. The Lions’ best player, TJ Malone, has an astounding 73 points this season, good for 3rd nationally, and is projected to go top 10 in the pro draft and he leads one of the most efficient shooting teams in the country. They also have the #7 scoring defense in the country anchored by an excellent veteran goalie, Jack Fracyon, who stoned Michigan earlier this season, putting up a career high 19 saves. 

So, Michigan has their work cut out for them. They shot sub-15% in their first matchup with PSU and I think that is unlikely to reoccur. But, if they can play like they did Thursday they can definitely repeat as B1G champs.  

GO BLUE!!