Cornell lacrosse 2019

[billhoward]

Looking ahead to the 2019 Cornell lacrosse season already. We have a full-time, non-interim coach but that didn't happen until last week. We'll have to see how the incoming class stacks up. Also how Yale's incoming class stacks up. Harvard and Penn should also be good; can Princeton recover from a couple off years?

Cornell had nine players on the All-Ivy teams (red type below) and six return. The biggest losses are D Jake Pulver and G Christian Knight. Freshman Caelahn Bullen started four games in goal and had a record of 5-0. One of the incoming goalie recruits is Chase Ierlan, the brother of Albany FOGO TD Ierlan (about half the time, you see it spelled Lerlan from somebody who must have transcribed quickly from handwritten notes).

This is the Inside Lacrosse recruiting commits for Cornell. http://www.insidelacrosse.com/team/commits/cornell/18 Cornell's class is rated a B-minus but then IL gave all four championship weekend teams a B-minus (Monday's finalists) or B (Saturday's losers). The Inside Lacrosse Top 25 recruits https://www.insidelacrosse.com/recruiting?year=2018&position=all has the best player (A Joey Epstein) going to Hopkins, one to Yale (#6 A Matt Brandau), two to Harvard, one to Penn, and none to Cornell or Princeton.

What Cornell needs most is an undetectable human growth hormone for Jeff Teat, a weight-room program, a change in faceguarding rules, a Rob Pannell-incoming-recruit type who could make it impossible to isolate Teat, or tactics to #FreeJeff. That and a FOGO who against the best we face (Ierlan?) still wins a third of the draws. But first there's football and hockey.


FIRST TEAM ALL-IVY
*Ben Reeves, Yale (Sr., A – Macedon, N.Y.)
*Michael Sowers, Princeton (So., A – Dresher, Pa.)
*Jeff Teat, Cornell (So., A – Brampton, Ont.)
*Jack Tigh, Yale (Jr., M – Garden City, N.Y.)
Austin Sims, Princeton (Sr., M – Fairfield, Conn.)
Jordan Dowiak, Cornell (Sr., M – Long Valley, N.J)
*Jake Pulver, Cornell (Sr., D – Manlius, N.Y.)
*Chris Fake, Yale (Fr., D – Allentown, N.J.)
Mark Evanchick, Penn (So., D – Darien, Conn.)
*Connor Keating, Penn (Sr., LSM – Gladwyne, Pa.)
Tyler Warner, Yale (Sr., SSM – Freeport, N.Y.)
*Conor Mackie, Yale (Sr., FO – Glen Rock, N.J.)
Phil Goss, Brown (So., G – San Francisco, Calif.)
 
SECOND TEAM ALL-IVY^
Morgan Cheek, Harvard (Sr., A – Wellesley, Mass.)
Simon Mathias, Penn (Jr, A – Ridgefield, Conn.)
Jackson Morrill, Yale (So., A – Baltimore, Md.)
Jack Korzelius, Dartmouth (Sr., M – Purchase, N.Y.)
Jake McCulloch, Cornell (Jr., M – Stony Brook, N.Y.)
Joe Lang, Harvard (Sr., M – Mill Valley, Calif.)
George Baughan, Princeton (Fr., D – Wyndmoor, Pa.)
Chris Keating, Yale (Sr., D – Windham, N.H.)
JJ Ntshaykolo, Brown (Sr., D – San Francisco, Calif.)
Austin Meacham, Dartmouth (Jr., D – West Harrison, N.Y.)
Robert Mooney, Yale (Jr., LSM – Princeton, N.J.)
Jason Alessi, Yale (Sr., SSM – Bloomfield Hills, Mich.)
Ted Otten, Brown (Sr., FO – Wilton, Conn.)
Robert Shaw, Harvard (Sr., G – Canton, Mass.)
 
HONORABLE MENTION ALL-IVY
Jackson Newsome, Brown (Jr., A – Arlington, Va.)
Kevin McGeary, Penn (Sr., A – Newtown Square, Pa.)
Michael Panepinto, Brown (Jr., M – Needham, Mass.)
Tyler Dunn, Penn (Jr., Manhasset, N.Y.)
Joe Sessa, Yale (Jr., M – Slate Hill, N.Y.)
John Daniggelis, Yale (Jr., M – Saint James, N.Y.)
Fleet Wallace, Cornell (Jr., D – Richmond, Va.)
Joe Kearney, Harvard (Sr., D – Duxbury, Mass.)
Jerry O'Connor, Yale (Sr., D – North Palm Beach, Fla.)
Andrew Song, Princeton (Fr., LSM – Canton, Mass.)
Brandon Salvatore, Cornell (So., LSM – New Canaan, Conn.)
Ryan Bray, Cornell (Jr., SSM – Shoreham, N.Y.)
Paul Rasimowicz, Cornell (So., FO – Somerset, N.J.)
Tyler Blaisdell, Princeton (Sr., G – Hanover, Mass.)
Christian Knight, Cornell (Sr., G – Baltimore, Md.)
*unanimous selection

Note the NCAA tournament "Most Outstanding Player" (the redundancy makes me gag) went to Yale's Matt Gaudet, who doesn't show up on the All-Ivy list.

[billhoward]

We should also wish that women's lacrosse builds to the competitiveness of women's hockey. Cornell was 7-8 this year.

[billhoward]

Is there even the framework of a 2019 schedule?

Albany again (good)? Bucknell or Lehigh? A Virginia or other southern name team? A Big Tenner? I miss playing Army because Michie Stadium is so nice (less so when there's still snow on the sidelines) but we need strong teams to help our SOS.

[billhoward]

https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1001486672675135489      

Incoming recruit John Lombardi (attack) from Rochester (Irondequoit) and Salisbury (CT). 5-foot-8, 180. Nice clip of an athletic goal, and Twitter discussion on how lax is for wimps.

[link may not be working. try pasting twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1001486672675135489  into your browswer]

[Al DeFlorio]

While watching last night's high school "championship" game I looked for a Hill Academy roster and came across this SI article on Hill from May 2016. Two items struck me from the article:

1.  A quote from Casey Vock:  "Everyone believes he [Jeff Teat] can elevate Cornell to where they would be a championship contender today if they had him."  Prescient.

2.  A Hill middie on Teat being shut off while playing at Hill:  "When you try to lock off one player and remove that slide, it gives so much more time to develop offense and room to shoot.  That is why we were able to put so many in on them [Culver] so fast."  

I'm afraid that developing a five-on-five game that is at least as effective as having Teat not shut off is going to be the only effective way to deter or defeat the shut-off.  Teat, as Carcaterra said during the ILT championship game, let's the game come to him.  He is uncanny at assessing the situation on the field to decide when to attack and when not to.  He'll touch the ball two or three or four times on a possession before making a move.  Trying to force the ball into his stick will take away that capability and otherwise disrupt the offense.  

This is going to be a very difficult thing for the coaching staff to figure out given the way Teat plays the game as opposed to a Pannell or a Reeves.  It will likely require a shuffling of offensive personnel when Teat is shut off, getting a feeder like Donville on the field and someone who can beat his man from X, draw slides, and be able to feed the player left open to take advantage of the additional open space.  I hope Milliman and staff can do it or it could be two frustrating seasons.

SI article is here for those who didn't see it at the time:

https://www.si.com/edge/2016/05/04/the-hill-academy-lacrosse-canada-high-school-brodie-merrill

[mike1960]

While watching last night's high school "championship" game I looked for a Hill Academy roster and came across this SI article on Hill from May 2016. Two items struck me from the article:

1.  A quote from Casey Vock:  "Everyone believes he [Jeff Teat] can elevate Cornell to where they would be a championship contender today if they had him."  Prescient.

2.  A Hill middie on Teat being shut off while playing at Hill:  "When you try to lock off one player and remove that slide, it gives so much more time to develop offense and room to shoot.  That is why we were able to put so many in on them [Culver] so fast."  

I'm afraid that developing a five-on-five game that is at least as effective as having Teat not shut off is going to be the only effective way to deter or defeat the shut-off.  Teat, as Carcaterra said during the ILT championship game, let's the game come to him.  He is uncanny at assessing the situation on the field to decide when to attack and when not to.  He'll touch the ball two or three or four times on a possession before making a move.  Trying to force the ball into his stick will take away that capability and otherwise disrupt the offense.  

This is going to be a very difficult thing for the coaching staff to figure out given the way Teat plays the game as opposed to a Pannell or a Reeves.  It will likely require a shuffling of offensive personnel when Teat is shut off, getting a feeder like Donville on the field and someone who can beat his man from X, draw slides, and be able to feed the player left open to take advantage of the additional open space.  I hope Milliman and staff can do it or it could be two frustrating seasons.

SI article is here for those who didn't see it at the time:

https://www.si.com/edge/2016/05/04/the-hill-academy-lacrosse-canada-high-school-brodie-merrill

Why not set up double screens across the middle as part of the flow of the offense? Or, if Teat's man can't slide, that would seem to set up enormous opportunities when Teat screens on or off ball. Placing him near the midline does not, in my unlettered opinion, seem the best option.

[Tom Lento]

While watching last night's high school "championship" game I looked for a Hill Academy roster and came across this SI article on Hill from May 2016. Two items struck me from the article:

1.  A quote from Casey Vock:  "Everyone believes he [Jeff Teat] can elevate Cornell to where they would be a championship contender today if they had him."  Prescient.

2.  A Hill middie on Teat being shut off while playing at Hill:  "When you try to lock off one player and remove that slide, it gives so much more time to develop offense and room to shoot.  That is why we were able to put so many in on them [Culver] so fast."  

I'm afraid that developing a five-on-five game that is at least as effective as having Teat not shut off is going to be the only effective way to deter or defeat the shut-off.  Teat, as Carcaterra said during the ILT championship game, let's the game come to him.  He is uncanny at assessing the situation on the field to decide when to attack and when not to.  He'll touch the ball two or three or four times on a possession before making a move.  Trying to force the ball into his stick will take away that capability and otherwise disrupt the offense.  

This is going to be a very difficult thing for the coaching staff to figure out given the way Teat plays the game as opposed to a Pannell or a Reeves.  It will likely require a shuffling of offensive personnel when Teat is shut off, getting a feeder like Donville on the field and someone who can beat his man from X, draw slides, and be able to feed the player left open to take advantage of the additional open space.  I hope Milliman and staff can do it or it could be two frustrating seasons.

SI article is here for those who didn't see it at the time:

https://www.si.com/edge/2016/05/04/the-hill-academy-lacrosse-canada-high-school-brodie-merrill

Why not set up double screens across the middle as part of the flow of the offense? Or, if Teat's man can't slide, that would seem to set up enormous opportunities when Teat screens on or off ball. Placing him near the midline does not, in my unlettered opinion, seem the best option.

If you're talking about having Teat set screens, there was a video breakdown of his game that captured some of those attempts (along with a bunch of other illustrative plays) from the Yale game in the ILT. To say Teat isn't very good at setting screens would be putting it charitably. I don't know that much about lacrosse but it was painfully obvious that the screens he was setting were all but useless. They didn't free the man and didn't force a slide - he might as well have been a pylon in a defensive footwork drill.

If you're talking about having others set screens to force the face guard to switch off that might work, but I don't know enough about the game to have an opinion on its potential effectiveness. I will say, from the player quotes I've been seeing the 5 on 5 strategy sounds pretty effective. It seems crappy, and it's going to be frustrating to watch if your expectation is that Teat will be dishing out 5 assists a game, but you do what you need to in order to win.

[billhoward]

99 points as a sophomore - does that turn out to be the high water mark for #51?

There is a chance we've figured out, here on the forum, how to #FreeJeff. But I'm also thinking that NLI Milliman and his cadre have been thinking on that as well and the fact that we lost to Maryland shows they didn't figure it out, either. Tey have some time to think on it before next February.

My solution is if Joey Epstein, attackman from Landon, MD, and the country's top recruit, decommits from Hopkins for Cornell, they can't cover both Epstein and Teat. Maybe he hasn't seen what the softer parts of Baltimore are really like. I drove by the Pimlico track at midnight earlier in the month and I won't do it again.

[djk26]

Is there a chance that Teat's career is over, if the team can't figure out how to counter the defense on him?  I don't mean over as in he quits playing lacrosse, I mean over as in being considered a top player.

[semsox]

It might be time to take a deep breath and trust that another year of development will be beneficial to all. Even with the shut off strategy dropping our offensive production the last quarter of the season, the team as a whole averaged 2 goals per game more than the 2017 squad with largely the same personnel. The only loss next year on the offensive end is Dowiak. Barring injury, we will have a top 5 offense next year. The 2018 team came into the year wanting to prove they belonged in the national conversation. The expectations and aspirations of the 2019 team will be higher than that.

[upprdeck]

syracuse shut him off too and we did just fine. win some faceoffs.

[djk26]

syracuse shut him off too and we did just fine. win some faceoffs.

I'm greedy, though.  I want to see Cornell win AND Teat get a lot of assists, simply because he's fun to watch when he's allowed to play.  I fear, though, that against good teams, he'll be trapped by the lockoff and won't be able to contribute.

[Swampy]

Or, if Teat's man can't slide, that would seem to set up enormous opportunities when Teat screens on or off ball.

This seems to be what Yale did when other teams tried to shut off Matt Gaudett, although perhaps comparing him to Clarke Petterson rather than Jeff Teat is more apropos. Then again, Gaudett is 6'1" and 220, so he probably creates a better big-body screen and certainly is harder to move out of the way. (Yes, I know doing so is illegal, but it still happens.)

With both Lombardi and Coyle coming in next fall, I could see having them both on the field to counter SOT. Have one play behind at the X and one at midfield, along with some creative picks, inverts, and Petterson, Fletcher, and Doneville, we could have enough feeders and dodgers covered by shorties to make 6 v (5 + 1 SOT) a very successful strategy. Of course, this will depend on how quickly they adjust to the college game.

But size still matters. Coyle is 5'7" and 150, while Lombardi is 5'8" 180. A wonderful thing about lacrosse as a sport is that smaller, athletic players like these can absolutely be top-echelon, but for certain circumstances having a bigger player is an asset (e.g., Max Seibald @ 6'1" 215). Don't quote me on this, but I believe Yale on average had the biggest team in college lacrosse this year.

[Al DeFlorio]

syracuse shut him off too and we did just fine. win some faceoffs.

I'm greedy, though.  I want to see Cornell win AND Teat get a lot of assists, simply because he's fun to watch when he's allowed to play.  I fear, though, that against good teams, he'll be trapped by the lockoff and won't be able to contribute.

Yes, that's a big part of the enjoyment of watching this Cornell team.  I fear that he'll be locked off by every team, good or not-so-good.

[djk26]

Yes, that's a big part of the enjoyment of watching this Cornell team.  I fear that he'll be locked off by every team, good or not-so-good.

I fear that, too...but I'm hoping that part of that fear is irrational and based on my limited lacrosse IQ.  There must be SOMETHING Cornell can do about this.  There's no way that the lockoff just automatically takes the best player out of the game.  Otherwise every single big attackman would be locked off and no player would ever score more than, say, 70 points in a season and we know that doesn't happen.