Keep an eye on the men in goal
Twelve years ago, Brian Dougherty put Maryland on his back with a heroic, 23-save effort in the NCAA men's lacrosse semifinal round. That catapulted the Terps past unbeaten Johns Hopkins and into the NCAA title game.
In 2002, Syracuse goalie Jay Pfeifer made 32 saves in the final two rounds of the tournament to lift the Orange to the national championship. The next year at M&T Bank Stadium, it was Tillman Johnson's turn to be the hero in the net, as Virginia rode his amazing work to the title.
In this weekend's final four at M&T, the moral of the story is, keep your eyes on the man in the cage.
The marquee game tomorrow, between top-seeded Duke and fourth-seeded, undefeated
Cornell, features the two most explosive offenses in Division I. But guess what? The men who ultimately will decide the issue probably will be the seniors in goal -- Cornell's Matt McMonagle and Duke's Dan Loftus.
They dominated a 7-6 Cornell win in Durham earlier this season. They surely will occupy two of the top three All-America spots at their position when the votes are announced this weekend. And whoever helps his team survive the semifinals probably will do so with an effort that boasts 15 to 20 saves, maybe more.
The same conditions apply to the first game. Third-seeded Hopkins, which has improved remarkably over the last six weeks, feels good about its chances in light of that. And the X factor for Hopkins is senior goalie Jesse Schwartzman, the MVP of the 2005 tournament and the last goalie standing on that 16-0 squad.
Schwartzman has had quite an up-and-down ride in 2007. He actually got pulled in the first quarter of a 15-3 win at Mount St. Mary's on April 30. He nearly got pulled from one or two other games. But he has a history of coming up big in big games, and his 15-save effort in last week's 14-6 trouncing of Georgetown is a case in point.
Then there's unseeded Delaware, and junior goalie Tommy Scherr, whose 18-save gem against Virginia in the first round helped pave the way for the Blue Hens to crash the M&T party. Delaware has the best faceoff man in the game in Alex Smith, a tremendous starting six on offense led by senior midfielders Dan Deckelbaum and Jordan Hall, and the Blue Hens are good at playing the bully on defense.
But, should Delaware knock off another one of the game's elite, here's betting the hero will be that 5-foot-10 kid from Mount St. Joseph named Scherr-- the man in the cage.
In 2002, Syracuse goalie Jay Pfeifer made 32 saves in the final two rounds of the tournament to lift the Orange to the national championship. The next year at M&T Bank Stadium, it was Tillman Johnson's turn to be the hero in the net, as Virginia rode his amazing work to the title.
In this weekend's final four at M&T, the moral of the story is, keep your eyes on the man in the cage.
The marquee game tomorrow, between top-seeded Duke and fourth-seeded, undefeated
Cornell, features the two most explosive offenses in Division I. But guess what? The men who ultimately will decide the issue probably will be the seniors in goal -- Cornell's Matt McMonagle and Duke's Dan Loftus.
They dominated a 7-6 Cornell win in Durham earlier this season. They surely will occupy two of the top three All-America spots at their position when the votes are announced this weekend. And whoever helps his team survive the semifinals probably will do so with an effort that boasts 15 to 20 saves, maybe more.
The same conditions apply to the first game. Third-seeded Hopkins, which has improved remarkably over the last six weeks, feels good about its chances in light of that. And the X factor for Hopkins is senior goalie Jesse Schwartzman, the MVP of the 2005 tournament and the last goalie standing on that 16-0 squad.
Schwartzman has had quite an up-and-down ride in 2007. He actually got pulled in the first quarter of a 15-3 win at Mount St. Mary's on April 30. He nearly got pulled from one or two other games. But he has a history of coming up big in big games, and his 15-save effort in last week's 14-6 trouncing of Georgetown is a case in point.
Then there's unseeded Delaware, and junior goalie Tommy Scherr, whose 18-save gem against Virginia in the first round helped pave the way for the Blue Hens to crash the M&T party. Delaware has the best faceoff man in the game in Alex Smith, a tremendous starting six on offense led by senior midfielders Dan Deckelbaum and Jordan Hall, and the Blue Hens are good at playing the bully on defense.
But, should Delaware knock off another one of the game's elite, here's betting the hero will be that 5-foot-10 kid from Mount St. Joseph named Scherr-- the man in the cage.
