While Quint, Mark Dixon, and all of the inside lacrosse experts will probably be lining up on in the corner of Johns Hopkins in Saturday’s rematch, remember this fact –In game one Mike Poppleton won 14 of 19 face-offs from Curtis Holmes and Charlie Raffa. Yet Maryland prevailed 9-6. This rarely happens in lacrosse and I can promise there will be no such domination on Saturday. Charlie Raffa has been coming into his own and the wings of Maryland will be laying their bodies on the line fighting for possession.
It’s clear now that Maryland has become scapegoat for the stall warning. Why does this happen? Because all of the ESPN commentators can’t wait to jump on the Terps, claiming that Tillman is the most guilty of slowing the game down. (Can’t ESPN find one ex Terp to sit in the play by play booth. Here’s a choice of candidates : Grant Catalino, Jeff Reynolds, Andrew Schwartzman, Joe Cinofsky, Lee Zink, Joe Walters, Brian Dougherty, Brian Farrell, and when this year ends Joe Cummings. Just one!!!) In Sunday’s matchup against Lehigh, the refs were very quick to issue the warning against Maryland. They must have read the the WSJ article.
So after all of the criticism of the ACC, here we are with 3 of the ACC teams in the final 8. Let us not forget that again this year the Terps entered the tournament unranked and were forced to go on the road to win. I am still shocked that UNC could not defeat a very weak defensive team in Denver. It is ridiculous that Denver was placed in Loyola’s bracket forcing the Greyhoinds to defeat Denver for the 3rd time this year. Though many are picking Denver, Loyola will prevail and justice will be served.
Tune into Terp Talk this Thursday night for in depth analysis of THE GAME.
Dan
Maryland gets called with the stall warning very early thanks to all the talking heads. We need to get our attack players closer to the goal and fire more high and corner of the goal shots.
· 11/12/2019