A couple of items to get the off-season discussion started.
(1) The men’s world championships get underway three weeks from today in San Diego. The USA team includes one current and two former Duke players (Brennan O’Neill, J.T. Giles-Harris, and Michael Sowers), and Coach Danowski is once again in charge.
(2) An intriguing name has popped up in the transfer portal (as a grad transfer): Michigan attackman Josh Zawada. Although he didn’t do much against Duke in this year’s NCAA quarterfinal, he’s the Wolverines’ all-time leading scorer. And he’s from Raleigh.
The PLL season opens this weekend, and plenty of Duke alums will be involved. Here’s the list.
Archers: none
Atlas: Justin Guterding, Cade van Raaphorst
Cannons: none
Chaos: C.J. Costabile, Mike Adler
Chrome: Will Haus, J.T. Giles-Harris, Mike Manley
Redwoods: Myles Jones, Nakeie Montgomery
Waterdogs: Michael Sowers
Whipsnakes: Brad Smith, Garrett Leadmon
Teams have 25-man rosters, but only dress 19 for each game, so you might not see all of these guys every weekend
Brennan wins the Tewaaraton.
https://www.insidelacrosse.com/artic...on-award/61664
He’s the third Duke player to do so, after Matt Danowski (2007) and Ned Crotty (2010)
Awesome, Congratulations Brennan!
Beat me to it.
I thought Pat Kavanagh was going to win it after the Irish beat us, even though they won he didn’t have the best weekend either.
Probably lucky that Entenmann wasn’t a finalist, his tournament MOP award was extremely well deserved..
Other than Rakower (G—Princeton) and Gonzalez (A-Amherst) who are apparently officially transferring to Duke, is there any word on Chase Irelan, the exceptional goalie from Cornell? Duke has an excellent recruiting class, despite Millon’s decommitment…but goalie may be a need.
Goalie is definitely a need. Both Helm and Bonafede are grad students, and the total minutes played this season by other goalies on the roster total about 35.If Rakower is coming to Duke (I know that has been mentioned here but haven't seen anything about it anywhere else), that would help. Ierlan would be a terrific addition. Haven't seen anything on schools he is considering.
Yes, I had forgotten about his recruitment. IL graded him highly:
“All-American as a sophomore in Philly, a rarity. Disciplined in net and shows off tremendous technique. Confident out of the cage, where he tosses great outlet passes. Sometimes struggled with consistency this summer, but is clearly among the tops at his position. He is extremely concise with his steps so when a shot is released there are no wasted movements as he attacks the ball. He sits tall in his stance but remains athletic, explosive and doesn't compromise the ability to get down on low shots. On his arc he is consistent and plays his angles well, but the thing that makes him great is his patience. He is able to sit on shots with great patience as he waits to see the ball and attack it. He rarely gets caught guessing or dipping pre-shot, nor does he bite on fakes or hitches. That patience allows him really settle in and obble up all the ones he should make and steal a few more.
Jameison is a confident righty with great explosiveness and strong fundamentals.”
Dan Wigrizer, Kyle Turri, and Luke Aaron would all like to remind you that GK’s with not-super-impressive regular-season stats sometimes get hot in the NCAA Tournament
While tracking down a Champs Sports commercial with men's hoops recruit Jared McCain (posted here), I saw that they also made a Myles Jones ad:
To be fair, Wigrizer was a freshman in 2010 when, as noted above by Burnspbesq, Duke won the championship.
And Burns is, of course, right that Duke has won championships with goalies who played much better in the tournament than in the regular season, especially when they had great defensemen in front of them. But it might be fun to start out with a goalie who is already considered elite.
Of course, being an elite goalie in high school is no guarantee of anything, and stuff can happen. Both Wigrizer and Turri, as I recall, had their Duke careers ended early by concussions.
Not related to much of anything but I thought the men's lax fans would appreciate this - I was at a Bar Mitzvah today and this week's portion in the Torah is titled Naso, which translates to mean "to lift up." Which is what he did for us most of the season...
Newly minted nemesis ND dipped into free agency to grab Brown A Devon McLane and his 51 points in 10 games out of the portal. McLane (cousin of Duke Soph A Liam McLane) will slot in at middie behind ND's scary returning attack.
Free agency is in full swing. Time for Dano to go shopping.
Hotshot sophomore attackman at my HS (five goals in the regional semis today) wears number 34. Maybe he’d like to follow in Brendan’s footsteps, although he’s built more like Dyson.
Remember the name Jack Frers.