Stevenson prepared for another dangerous opponent
Cabrini senior attackman Casey Grugan had entered last Saturday’s NCAA Division III Tournament second round averaging 3.6 goals and 5.3 points per game.
That average took a little slide during Stevenson’s 19-9 rout of the Cavaliers. The 18-1 Mustangs, the top-ranked team in the latest United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association poll but the No. 2 seed in the South region, limited Grugan, who registered 334 points in his career, to just one goal and zero assists.
Coach Paul Cantabene said much of the credit belonged to junior defenseman Evan Douglass.
"We thought Evan Douglass was going to do a great job on Grugan, which turned out to be the case," Cantabene said. "We really limited their offensive capacity, and that allowed us to put a lot of pressure on them, and once we got our shots falling, they’re not a great catch-up team, so we were able to extend out on them."
So what’s Stevenson’s reward? A quarterfinal contest with No. 5 Roanoke, which upended No. 3 seed and 2009 national finalist Gettysburg in the second round and boasts senior attackman Matt Quinton (a team-leading 54 goals and 65 points).
Quinton was shut out by junior defenseman Ian Hart in the Mustangs’ 18-9 thumping on March 27, and Cantabene said Quinton can expect the same match-up on Wednesday at 4 p.m. at Caves Athletic Complex in Owings Mills.
"He’s a great off-ball player, and he has an extremely slick stick, and he can shoot it really well," Cantabene said of Quinton. "I thought we just did a good job of limiting his opportunities. That really kept them off the boards. We don’t expect keep him off the boards again. We just hope to limit his opportunities again and hopefully in the end, we’ll be one-goal better."
Other notes:
*As mentioned before, the quarterfinal is a re-match of an earlier meeting in the regular season. Because of that, Cantabene said he doesn’t expect too many surprises from either team. "When you go into a game blind against a team you haven’t played before, you don’t really know what’s going to happen," he said. "I think playing them gives us an idea of what their abilities are and what they can do and what they’re going to do in certain situations. But they’re also going to be a real motivated team because we beat them by nine earlier in the season, and they’re going to want to come back and be ready to go."
*Fast starts have been something of a routine for Stevenson, which has jumped out to quick and sizable leads in 11 games this season. The Mustangs enjoyed a similar advantage against Roanoke, sprinting out to a 7-1 lead in the first quarter. "We might not be able to do that again, but we sure would like to get up on them and make them play quick and force them to take shots that they normally wouldn’t take," Cantabene said.
