Nothing 'definite' on return of Navy's Woeppel
When Navy plays host to No. 15 Johns Hopkins Saturday, one of the Midshipmen’s defensive priorities will involve containing Blue Jays senior midfielder Michael Kimmel, who has totaled five goals and three assists in four career meetings with Navy.
Kimmel would likely draw the attention of senior long-stick midfielder Jaren Woeppel, but Woeppel’s status is still up in the air due to an injured right hamstring.
Woeppel, who is believed to be the first long-stick midfielder to be voted as the Patriot League’s Preseason Defensive Player of the Year, missed the Midshipmen’s losses to No. 5 Maryland and Army and has sat out four contests this season.
Coach Richie Meade was non-committal about Woeppel’s availability for Saturday.
"He ran around [Tuesday]," Meade said. "Like I said last week, he’s very, very close, but I can’t get a definite answer, and I don’t think there is one. Our position has been that he’s not going to play until we feel like he’s close to 100 percent and he can be effective. My feeling is that he’s close, but it’s not something that you can get a definite time frame on. He’s working at it and he’s much better than he was. Whether or not he plays this weekend, if he’s 100 percent, he will play."
On a related note, Meade said the team has moved past an official’s controversial ruling waiving off a goal by sophomore midfielder Nikk Davis that appeared to tie the score against Army last Saturday with 37 seconds left in regulation.
Although Meade said he has heard – unofficially – that Davis’ goal – one in which the Cockeysville native and Dulaney graduate was pushed and launched into the air simulatenously before he fired the ball and crashed into the net – should have counted, the coach said did not want the ending to detract from the Black Knights’ victory.
"The referees are not trying to make a bad call," Meade said. "They’re trying to make the right call. And it doesn’t do us any good to talk about it because we still lost to Army. … I feel like it should never have come down to Nikk Davis having to go kamikaze to score a goal at the end of the game. We should have played better than that."
Junior attackman Andy Warner agreed with his coach, saying, "The day after the game, you probably think, ‘ Man, that goal should’ve counted. We should’ve been in overtime. Blah, blah, blah.’ But then, when you really start to think about it and you look back at the film, it should never have come to that point. Offensively, we didn’t play well. … It’s tough to put it on one play. Yes, we would have loved to have that goal to tie it and go into overtime, but we still had 35 seconds left on the man-up. We had every opportunity to tie that game and put it into overtime."
