Category: navy lacrosse

Oops…

On By MikeIn navy lacrosse2 Comments

It appears I jumped the gun. Navy is in the NCAA lacrosse tournament, and headed to UNC on Saturday to once again face the Tarheels in the opening round. Somehow Navy got the nod over Georgetown and Army, who suffered some fairly incredible meltdowns against suspect competition over the last few weeks. Then again, so did Navy, although Colgate went on to make the tournament as the Patriot League’s AQ. Still, I imagine the Mids’ selection has raised some eyebrows.

North Carolina’s offense hasn’t been overwhelming this year, so perhaps this is a good matchup for the Mids. The Heels did beat Johns Hopkins at the end of March, but two weeks later lost to an Ohio State team that Navy beat at the beginning of the season. It’s about as good a draw as we could have hoped for, and a win would likely mean a rematch with Johns Hopkins in Annapolis.

We were lucky just to get in. Here’s hoping we make the most of it.

Thus Endeth the Lacrosse Season

On By MikeIn navy lacrosse5 Comments

Back in January, I said, “I think this might be the year that someone other than Navy finally wins the Patriot League.” Two months later, after Navy ran over Colgate to put themselves at 5-0 in the Patriot League heading into the Army game, I felt like an idiot; it looked like it would be business as usual in Patriot League lacrosse. Oh Lord how I wish I still felt like an idiot. Colgate beat Navy 12-9 in the semifinals of the Patriot League tournament, ending Navy’s season and punctuating a slide that began with a lackluster performance against Army. The Mids ended the season at 9-5.

Navy’s defense this year, except for a couple of slip-ups, was as solid as advertised. Both Matt Coughlin and Tommy Phelan were effective in goal. But what on earth happened to the offense? Talking with some dedicated followers of the program before the season, they all agreed that Richie Meade’s offense this year was going to be conservative. And conservative it was, seemingly placing greater value in posessing the ball than generating scoring opportunities. That was fine when the Mids were playing the first half of their schedule. When the tougher second half came around, it didn’t cut the mustard. The offense only scored 6.7 goals per game in the second half of the season, meaning Navy’s defense would have to play close to perfect in order for the team to have any shot at winning. The defense actually did achieve near-perfection in a few games. But if Navy’s opponent got out to a multi-goal lead, the offense couldn’t make up the difference, resorting to easily-saved desperation shots.

The question now is whether Coach Meade’s offense was conservative because he thought it had to be, or conservative because that’s just the way he does things. Part of the reason why so many people anticipated Navy’s offense would want to slow things down this year was because of how young it would be. With the graduation of Ian Dingman and Billy Looney, Navy lost 53 goals from its biggest inside-outside threats. Nick Mirabito was returning, but his supporting cast of Tim Paul, Patrick Moran, and Basil Daratsos were all sophomores. Seeing this, the Navy gameplan appeared to be to slow the game down and take pressure off of the young offense, with the thinking that in low-scoring games, the team with the best defense has an advantage. Maybe, maybe not. It didn’t work at the end of the year, anyway. But what about next year? Paul and Moran will both be juniors. Daratsos, who was nowhere near 100% recovered from his ACL injury, should be much closer to the form of his freshman campaign in which he scored 17 goals. Bruce Nechanicky should be back to quarterback the offense after his own ACL injury before the season. Is this enough for Coach Meade to decide to open the floodgates a little? We’ll see. Let’s hope so.

The Weekend That Was

On By MikeIn navy football, navy lacrosse16 Comments

The weekend of the spring football game and the Hopkins lacrosse game is usually when I make my annual pilgrimage to Annapolis from my humble Florida home. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make the trip this year due to some emergency work issues. Bummer for me. Of course, after talking to a few people that did go, I’m not sure that my mood would be any better had I made the trip. Hopkins crushed the Mids, tacking another year onto their mind-boggling streak. The night before, Navy Blue defeated Navy Gold in a snoozer of a spring game. I suppose I’ll tackle the lacrosse game first.

The football team’s losing streak to Notre Dame was more high-profile, but I always thought that that Navy lacrosse’s losing streak to Johns Hopkins was far more perplexing. Navy and Notre Dame are on different planets when it comes to college football, but the delta between Navy and Hopkins lacrosse is much smaller. Sure, Hopkins still has all the advantages when it comes to recruiting against Navy and should win more than they lose against them, but the Mids are still a solid lacrosse program. Hell, if Navy hadn’t lost to Army, they’d have been ranked higher than Hopkins going into the game. You’d think that the law of averages would throw us a bone once in a while. But no, 33 games has now turned into 34, and Navy finds itself in a rather precarious position when it comes to getting an NCAA tournament bid. I wonder if John Feinstein thinks that Navy should stop playing those bullies from Hopkins. Anyway…

The game itself was a suck tsunami. The usually stout Navy defense seemed to have a great deal of difficulty with the Hopkins ride, leading to several turnovers. It probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference even if they were able to get the ball to the offense, though, since that unit continued to struggle. How many games have we watched this year where a graphic pops up on the screen to say “NAVY: NO GOALS SINCE 5:32 IN THE SECOND QUARTER” or “NAVY SCORING DROUGHT- 15:48” or something similar? Our offense just hasn’t cut it since we’ve entered the meat of the schedule. Navy has averaged a little more than 6 goals per game in regulation since the Bucknell game. You’re putting one hell of a load on your defense & goaltender if you’re asking them to hold some of these high-powered offenses to less than that. Being patient and setting up a quality shot is one thing, but what Navy is doing is a whole different ball of wax. The scoring opportunities aren’t developing, and it’s leading to desperation heaves from bad angles or shots from 20 yards away– both of which are easily saved by the opposing goalie.

All of that is easy for me to observe from my La-Z-Boy. Fixing the problem is a different issue. I have no answers. I just hope that the coaches see that there is a problem and can fix it.

Anyway, moving right along…

The spring game wasn’t exactly a suspense-filled drama. The first-teamers who made up the Blue team were for the most part, as Coach Niumat put it, just punching the clock. In contrast, the Gold team seemed to really be playing hard, but just didn’t have the horses to keep up. I’ll give my impressions of what I saw, but it’s important to keep everything in context. People make a big deal out of the spring game, but it really is just one practice out of 15, and nothing more. Anything we see, good or bad, may not be a reflection of reality. That said, it’s the only practice my Floridian ass gets to see, so here’s a bit of stream of consciousness to relay my observations.

– First off, congratulations are in order for next year’s team captains, Jarod Bryant and Clint Sovie. Craig Schaefer also gets a pat on the back for winning the VADM Mack award as the team’s most improved player of the spring. His swift rise up the linebacker depth chart made this one pretty easy to predict.

– The hit of the night came from Joey Taylor, the Gold team safety who stepped up in run support to bounce Greg Shinego to the ground on the sideline. The Gold team in general was hitting hard. Linebackers Trey Grissom and Tyler Simmons were everywhere in the first half. Especially Grissom, who got behind the line of scrimmage to make 3.5 tackles for a loss, including a sack. On the blue side, I thought Ram Vela played well. Corey Johnson made a couple of plays as well.

– It was tough to get a read on the defensive lines, because neither offensive line looked all that great. The Blue d-line spent a lot of time in the Gold backfield. Matt Nechak registered a sack. Nate Frazier only had one tackle, but he seemed to be wreacking havoc on the inside. Andy Lark struggled at center, especially in pass protection. He’s got a ways to go to be ready to back up Ricky Moore, who actually looked pretty good.

– Jarod Bryant looked terrific. He stepped up on the opening drive and marched the first-team offense down the field for an easy touchdown. His passing was clearly improved, as demonstrated by his 25-yard sideline bullet to Shun White that put the ball on the Gold 1-yard line. His running was great, but we already knew that. Most importantly, he also seemed to have pretty good command of the triple option. It was a great showing by next year’s offensive captain.

– Mixed reviews for the other quarterbacks. Greg Zingler and Joe Taylor both looked decent when they weren’t running for their lives– they usually were. Zingler probably had the play of the game, hitting Greg Jones in perfect stride for a 65-yard TD pass that was called back thanks to an illegal shift penalty. As for Ricky Dobbs, whether you feel good about him or feel a little nervous, you got some fuel to support your opinion. For the most part, Dobbs just didn’t look ready for prime time, fumbling twice and looking very tentative on his option reads. But on one busted play, Dobbs unleashed a barrage of moves that will keep Anne Arundel County’s ankle surgeons in business for at least another month. Ricky was able to reverse his direction and turned a doomed play into a 32-yard scamper down the right sideline that led to 1st and goal from the 4-yard line. It’s clear that the athletic ability is there. Now we just need to wait for the learning process.

– Kevin Campbell was the game’s leading rusher, although in all honesty I was a bit underwhelmed by his performance. He ran hard, but usually he ran hard straight into a pile. The difference between 2002 Kyle Eckel and 2003 Kyle Eckel was that while the former tried to move piles, the latter tried to avoid them. The same metamorphosis would work well for Campbell. He did show some good hands and quickness in turning a fullback screen into a 24-yard gain. I was very impressed with Vince Murray, who seemed to have a knack for finding open space. If there was a knock on him, I’d say that didn’t run with his pads low enough. Hopefully one of you more knowledgable readers can correct me if I’m off-base on that one.

– The A-backs didn’t get the ball into their hands very often, but they usually made it count when they did. Shun White led the way with 23 yards on 4 carries, plus that great catch on the pass from Bryant. Greg Shinego looked very quick on a 3rd quarter 12-yard run, and Andre Byrd, while not seemingly as fast as the other two, had a knack for making tacklers miss to gain some extra yards, plus a TD run. I have no idea if these guys were doing the right things without the ball, but in terms of their playmaking ability with the ball, my optimism is unchanged.

– Kyle Delahooke’s missed field goal was a little discouraging, but everyone seemed to punt the ball pretty well.

All in all, it was a typical spring game. Let’s be honest now… None of them are ever that exciting. Huge, huge props go to NAAA for putting it on All-Access. Pete & Omar, despite the audio difficulties, were very entertaining in calling the game. The next step is to wait for the last depth chart of the spring (if there will be one).

Catching Up

On By MikeIn army, going pro, navy football, navy lacrosse10 Comments

— The big news over the weekend was the lacrosse team’s 5-4 win over Maryland on Friday night. The Mids took a 5-0 lead into halftime and held on at the end. TBO2F sums things up and gives you all the links to game reports here. Between Maryland, Georgetown, and Hopkins, Navy probably needed to win at least one of those three to have a shot at being seeded in the NCAA tournament, assuming they beat Army and win the Patriot League tournament. Of course, that’s no guarantee the way Army and Bucknell have been playing. Navy travels to West Point to take on Army on Saturday at noon.

One more thing on the Maryland game– TBO2F points out that Navy turned the ball over on 14 of its 16 second half posessions. Not good, and not going to cut it if we want to purge the last of the wretched losing streaks that hang over our athletic department.

— Speaking of West Point, the tremendous amount of “good PR” generated by their Alternative Service* Option keeps pouring in. Here we have Thomas Hauser, Muhammad Ali biographer and Pulitzer Prize nominee, taking a break from boxing to write about the new super-awesome West Point policy. Most of his points are things you’ve already read here, but it’s worth a look.

— The other big news from this weekend was the first football scrimmage of the spring. The official report is here. Adam gave a good recap down in the comments of the last post, too. Bill Wagner gave his impressions here. So far the stars on the offensive side look like Bryant, Shinego, and Byrd, with Maurice Cumberland standing out on defense.

— All of next year’s home games (except Notre Dame) will start at 3:30 (ET).

— One Baltimore blogger wonders if the new DC Bowl will keep the proposed Baltimore game from happening.

Loose Change, 3/28/08

On By MikeIn bowls, Ken Niumatalolo, lacrosse, navy basketball, navy football, navy lacrosse, Paul Johnson2 Comments

Odds & ends you may have missed over the past week:

– Unfortunately, this week’s Loose Change leads off with news of the passing of Ben Carnevale. There is nothing that I can say that will possibly do him justice. Carnevale is in many ways the father of Navy basketball, and brought the team to the national stage during his 20 years in Annapolis. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1970, and the work that he did after being inducted was just as impressive. The game, and our school, owe him their gratitude.

– Lacrosse is the big story this weekend as Navy will try to get the Georgetown monkey off of its back Saturday in a game that will be shown on CBS College Sports. The Inside Lacrosse preview of the game is here. Navy fans in the know have been reading Christian Swezey’s lacrosse blog and learned that Tommy Phelan will be the starting goalkeeper, with Matt Coughlin still nursing his hamstring injury. The Fastest Blog on 2 Feet also has a scouting report on the game from former Navy player and DeMatha coach Dick Long. Pete Medhurst will be calling the game for WNAV with the pregame show starting at 4:45 ET.

– One of the side stories in the Navy-Georgetown game is the matchup of the Mirabito brothers.

– Tony Barnhart made the startling discovery that Navy fans like Paul Johnson. No wai!!!11!1

– You Pitch Right expatriates that only stomach this blog because you don’t have a choice anymore will be pleased to see Adam again as he talks about independents’ spring practice news and notes while guest blogging at In The Bleachers.

– David Flores of the San Antonio Express-News catches up with David Robinson, including his take on this year’s tournament, here.

– A somewhat unusual blog about historical markers has a recent entry on the Bill the Goat statue by Gate 1.

– Another blogger ranks Alumni Hall as the venue for one of his favorite pre-game media buffets.

– A Kentucky paper has a column about an upcoming college boxing tournament being hosted by UK, with a couple mentions of Navy.

– Something I talk about regularly on this blog is the value of intercollegiate athletics to a university.

– Marine Captain and former Navy footballer Brian Stan won the WEC light heavyweight title on Wednesday night with a first-round TKO of defending champion Doug Marshall. There was a brief moment when it looked like Stann was in trouble, but he survived a flurry of punches and landed a haymaker of his own, and that’s all it took. You can watch the fight here.

– The Congressional Bowl found a conference partner: the ACC. That’s good news for Navy:

The NCAA requires prospective bowls to have guaranteed opponents, a TV contract, venue and a letter of credit. Metcalf said all those elements are in place, including documents proving the proposed Congressional Bowl can meet its mandate of paying $1 million to each participating school.

Now that everything’s in place, six wins should be enough for the Mids to find a home in the postseason. No word yet on whether the game will be at RFK or the new Nationals’ ballpark. 

– And finally, the football post-practice presser makes its glorious return! Those changes in the passing game that Niumat talked about in his presser on Monday? Not exactly an overhaul.

We aren’t making any drastic changes. There might be some technique changes, the way we run our routes, the depth at where we run our routes, what foot we lead with, what shoulder we are looking over, real small intricate details that might help us become a little bit more efficient.

Other than that, Niumat says that practice is going OK and that he’s looking to get Jarod Bryant as many reps at slot as Kaipo’s knee will allow.

Wagner: When he was in at quarterback last year it seemed like you ran a package for him with a lot of inside runs and draws. Running the ball as a slot back is different. Do you think he can be as effective running the ball on the outside?

Niumatalolo: I don’t know. That remains to be seen. We are going to find out. All I know is he makes people miss.

Damn skippy.

I think he’ll be OK.

Lax Happenings

On By MikeIn navy lacrosseLeave a comment

It was business as usual in the Patriot League on Sunday afternoon as Navy took down Colgate, 8-3. Many people– including me– felt that this might be the season where the Patriot League finally catches up to Navy. The Mids have played lacrosse in the Patriot League for four years, and they’ve won four league titles. But with so many players graduating last year, some felt that Bucknell and Colgate were poised to give Navy a run for its money. Maybe they will, but they’ll have to wait until the league tournament to do it. The Colgate win followed a 4-3 overtime win over Bucknell (that was played in a monsoon). With Army plugging along and looking improved over last year, it appears that the Patriot League will come down to the two service academies once again.

Postgame stream of consciousness:

– Navy’s defense is ridiculous. The Mids have given up only 3 goals in each of the last 4 games and have held their opponents to 5 goals or less in 7 games. Colgate managed only 14 shots through 3 quarters before getting a little more desperate in the 4th.

– The CBS College Sports coverage was excellent.

– As good as it was, though, Paul Carcaterra seemed hell-bent on creating a goalie controversy. In fairness, so did Tommy Phelan with his 13 saves. Before you jump on that bandwagon, though, remember that Matt Coughlin is in the middle of a great season himself. You guys can’t possibly be THAT fickle, can you?

– Some describe Navy’s offense as “deliberate.” We better hope so, because any flaws will be exposed by Georgetown on Saturday. The Hoyas might finally be rising to meet expectations after beating #1 Duke.

Anyway, if you missed the Colgate game, here are some highlights:

And if you wonder what lacrosse looks like with a big ol’ star at midfield, click here.

By the way… Don’t miss Christian Swezey’s new lacrosse blog at the Post, The Fastest Blog on 2 Feet. If you don’t read it, you won’t be the first to know that Richie Meade hasn’t made a decision on his starting goalie yet. Swezey knows his lacrosse, and you can’t afford not to read his blog.

That’s it for now. Spring football practice started today, and I’ll be dissecting Ken Niumatalolo’s press conference later on. Things are picking up for Navy fans!

Loose Change 3/14/08

On By MikeIn naval academy, navy basketball, navy football, navy lacrosse, navy sports, patriot league6 Comments

Odds & ends you may have missed over the past week:

  • Did I mention my March of Dimes walk?
  • Ken Niumatalolo added one more assistant to his coaching staff, hiring former Harvard wide receivers coach Mike Judge to be the new fullbacks coach. The announcement was a bit of a surprise, as Ivin Jasper was originally supposed to coach both the quarterbacks and the fullbacks. I don’t know what changed there.
  • It’s time for this year’s College Football Hall of Fame elections, and once again Wayne Hardin is on the ballot. You may be interested to know that Pat Tillman is as well. Chet Moeller, unfortunately, is not.
  • The Mid-Majority listed its picks for conference award winners. The blog agrees with the Patriot League’s pick for Player of the Year in Greg Sprink, but endorsed Jeff Jones for the coaching honors.
  • It’s spring break at USNA, and the women’s soccer team is spending it in Spain.
  • Spring break also means a trip for the lacrosse team, and for the second straight year they’ll be heading to Dallas. Coming off their best performance of the season against Lehigh, the Mids will look to keep their Patriot League momentum rolling tomorrow when they play Holy Cross at Texas Stadium. A little bit more on the event here. I liked it better when the team went to Orlando on spring break, but I’m biased.
  • Yale Eckert tossed a one-hitter against Iona. And they use aluminum bats!
  • There was a piece in the Washington Times about the Foundation.
  • Matt DaSilva at Lacrosse Magazine ponders whether the Navy women’s lacrosse team will be 16-0 at the end of April. We will find out just how good these Mids are when they take on defending Patriot League champs Holy Cross this weekend.
  • Mike Preston, who is quickly becoming a favorite of mine, discusses how much of a crock it was for the NCAA to have given an extra year of eligibility to last year’s Duke lacrosse seniors.
  • And finally, Mansfield certainly seems to be generating a lot of hoopla for their new sprint football team. But to give you a feel for the current state of sprint football, we have this:

    Steve McCloskey, Mansfield’s director of athletic operations and information, explained that the CSFL season generally includes seven or eight games, and there are no playoffs. The Mountaineers will not compete against Army and Navy this season as the players there “are in training year-round. Their programs are elevated,” McCloskey said.

    He added that the university and the CSFL mutually agreed to give the Mountaineers two years to get ready for the service academies, but Mansfield could play Army and Navy as soon as next season if the Mountaineers think they’re ready.

    It takes two years just to get ready to play the service academies? Come on, it’s not like they’ll do any worse than Princeton. (Oh, and pay no attention to the part in the article that says Cornell won the league this year).

Busy Weekend

On By MikeIn navy basketball, navy lacrosse, navy sports, patriot league3 Comments

BASKETBALL: After Wednesday’s win over American, Saturday’s 73-62 loss to Colgate was a real letdown. So much for first place; American beat Lafayette and claimed the regular-season Patriot League crown. Their reward is a first-round game against Holy Cross, whose loss to Lehigh on Saturday clinched the Crusaders’ descent from first to worst. Don’t think that Holy Cross is the worst team in the league, though; while I’d still rather have the Patriot League championship and automatic NIT bid under our belts, for the purposes of the league tournament it might have been better to finish second. Then again, maybe not; Army’s 54-51 win over Bucknell pushed the Bison into the 7 seed and a first-round matchup with Navy. No matter what their league records are, it just doesn’t feel like playing Holy Cross or Bucknell is much of a reward for finishing on top of the conference.

Navy’s likely 2nd round matchup, should they beat Bucknell, would be against Colgate. If Navy wins this thing, they’ll definitely have earned it. The tournament starts Wednesday at the home courts of the higher seeds. The official tournament bracket is here.

BASEBALL: Navy might have been picked to finish first in the Patriot League, but over the weekend they had their hands full with the Ivy League. The Mids dropped two out of three to Dartmouth and fell to 3-3 on the year. Be more careful on your home run trots, Mitch!

LACROSSE: Navy beat Mount St. Mary’s 12-5 on Friday night. After an initial MSM posession that took up about half of the first quarter, Navy’s attack finally came alive. Nick Mirabito had a hat trick and two assists, while Tim Paul added a two goals to go along with two assists of his own. It was a somewhat unremarkable game, although it was a bit disturbing to see the Mount win 14 of 20 faceoffs. Navy’s next five games are all against Patriot League opponents, beginning with Lafayette on Saturday.

Speaking of the Patriot League, Army dominated Air Force 12-4 on Saturday, while Bucknell scored their own 8-7 overtime win over Ohio State. Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite sleeper team, Colgate, needed overtime to get by Canisius, 12-11.

WOMEN’S LACROSSE: Navy beat Niagara 21-5. I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about women’s lacrosse, but when a team in its first varsity season wins its first two games by a combined score of 42-15, it’s noteworthy. Yes, Niagara was 1-12 last year. But it’s good to know that the Mids are at least on a different level than that.

Loose Change 2/29/08

On By MikeIn air farce, Kyle Eckel, lacrosse, navy basketball, navy football, navy lacrosse7 Comments

Odds & ends you may have missed over the past week:

  • There’s some speculation about Kyle Eckel’s future in Foxboro. Here’s one guy’s take on the state of the Patriots’ backfield, guessing that they may add a running back in the draft.
  • Navy basketball’s rise to the top of the Patriot League has meant added coverage from local papers, including this great writeup in the Times on Greg Sprink.
  • To the dismay of Maryland and Georgetown fans, one local hoops blogger thinks that David Robinson is the area’s all-time greatest basketball player.
  • Things are so bad at the Air Force Academy prep school that they’ve cancelled the rest of their basketball season.
  • The University of South Alabama is starting up a football team, with the goal of eventually moving into I-A in a few years. Once they do, they’re looking into lining up “quality opponents like Tennessee and Navy.”
  • The University of North Alabama already has a football team. A very good team, actually– one of the annual poll-toppers in Division II. They’re coached by former Navy offensive coordinator Mark Hudspeth, and one of the local papers published a story on him here.
  • A couple of lacrosse tidbits: first, the Tewaaraton watch list is out, and it includes Navy’s Jordan DiNola. In other news, a Big East lacrosse conference is in the works.
  • Former Navy baseball coach Bob MacDonald had a stint with the Mariners as a volunteer batting practice pitcher, among other things.
  • Former Navy football player turned cagefighter Brian Stann will be fighting for the WEC light heavyweight title on March 26th. I’ve seen a couple of his earlier fights, and they didn’t exactly last long. One guy took one punch from Stann, got an “oh God what did I get myself into” look on his face, then went down with the second punch. Still, there’s more to this stuff than just punching. We’ll see if Stann’s skills have developed beyond striking.
  • And finally, read this.

Loose Change 2/22/08

On By MikeIn lacrosse, navy basketball, navy football, navy lacrosse, patriot league5 Comments

Odds & ends you may have missed over the past week:

  • Admit it. You go to eBay once in a while just to look at old Navy football program covers like this one:

If you do, you’ll appreciate this blog entry about Army-Navy covers of years past.

  • The Patriot League lacrosse coach interviews continue with Army’s Joe Alberici and Colgate’s Jim Nagle.
  • UConn football coach Randy Edsall talks about Big East expansion and his desire to play Army here. No comments about why he dropped Navy, though.
  • Wrestling recruit Bailey Whitaker was in the finals of the Tennessee state tournament, as was football recruit Jabaree Tuani-McKissack.
  • Bill Wagner wrote about 3-point rainmaker Chris Harris.
  • Navy baseball starts up this weekend with the Mids taking on Air Force in Millington, Tennessee. The preseason Patriot League favorites will unfortunately have to go a few weeks without the services of all-world pitcher Mitch Harris, who jammed his shoulder in an intra-squad scrimmage last week. If the Supe wants to can Herndon because he’s afraid of injuries, maybe he should consider banning home run trots, too.
  • The lacrosse season is underway, which means that the Sun’s Faceoff blog has finally come out of hibernation. The Sun also talks about Navy’s 2-0 start here. “Well-rounded” is a nice spin, I guess.
  • If you haven’t seen our new lacrosse uniforms yet, you can get a look here.
  • Last weekend, Delaware crunched UMBC in a lacrosse doubleheader held here in Jacksonville to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project. Next year, event organizers want to make it a “service academy challenge.”
  • The ESPN mothership is going to show a regular-season lacrosse game for the first time. AKA an ESPNU infomercial.
  • Don’t tell Chet, but Paul Johnson says that he did “all he could do” at Navy.