GU-Navy Lax Updates....

[WilsonBlvdHoya]

GU 2, Navy 0 after 1st Q....game changed to Naval Academy on a VERY soggy day in the DC/Bmore area....

Per DFW, game is on locally on Channel 2 and on ESPNU on cable/satellite.....

[WilsonBlvdHoya]

Unusual situation: Game is suspended until tomorrow because one of the officials, Scott Boyle, collapsed on the field at the end of the first quarter. An ambulance was brought to the stadium and, after a slight delay, Boyle was taken away. Thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family......

[nychoya3]

Game postponed until Sunday. One of the refs seemingly had a heart attack or something similar. Sounded bad. Supposedly they will pick up where they left off tomorrow at 1 PM. Hope the ref is okay - they took him off in an ambulance.

[DFW HOYA]

The Post reports the referee died following the game.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21787-2005Apr2.html

[GUHoya07]

That's extremely sad, but hopefully on this day his family and friends can find the strength to celebrate his life rather than feel too much sorrow, much like Karol Wojtyla would want in response to his passing.

May He Rest in Peace.

[DanMcQ]

Times Story

www.washtimes.com/sports/20050403-125809-6468r.htm

[CAHoya07]

That's really shocking, tragic, and incredibly sad about the ref collapsing on the field and later dying. That coupled with John Paul II's passing on Saturday made the day way too death-ridden for me. May they both rest in peace.

However, it's nice to see our #7 Hoyas thrash #6 Navy 11-6 today.

[TBird41]

CAHoya07 said:

That's really shocking, tragic, and incredibly sad about the ref collapsing on the field and later dying. That coupled with John Paul II's passing on Saturday made the day way too death-ridden for me. May they both rest in peace.

However, it's nice to see our #7 Hoyas thrash #6 Navy 11-6 today.

That's great that the Hoyas beat Navy. The Duke loss was pretty troubling, but they seemed to have bounced back well.

[nychoya3]

A very important win under sad circumstances. Navy is a very good team - they were among the top in the nation last year - and to handle them so easily speaks well for the team. Hopkins, UVa, and Duke seem to have seperated themselves from the pack, but the Hoyas have looked as good as anyone else. Actually, I expect them to be 4th in the nation come monday. Not too shabby.

Easier stretch coming up in the schedule now, but there are no pushovers. I hope we can win out - we'd be in great shape to finally get over the hump in the tourney and make the semis, at least.

[WilsonBlvdHoya]

NYC,

4th might be too high at this point; remember, Maryland thrashed our boys earlier in the season and they just got killed down in Charlottesville by UVA. I think 5th or 6th is more likely and that seed might bear out until the tourney assuming they take care of business in the league....

[nychoya3]

As Stuart Scott might say, WBH, BOO YAH:

insidelacrosse.com/page.cfm?pagerid=2&news=fdetail&storyid=82778

[WilsonBlvdHoya]

nychoya3 said:

As Stuart Scott might say, WBH, BOO YAH:

insidelacrosse.com/page.cfm?pagerid=2&news=fdetail&storyid=82778

LOL! Of course, "boo yah" is a lot of trash talk for one vote above 5th and three votes above 6th (365 vs. 364 for Army and 362 for SU). Plus, polls aside, I'd like to see GU prove on the field that it's better than Maryland....

[gamer23]

you know its not a sport when an 0-5 team is still ranked #25 in the nation.....tough to get excited about our success in this "sport". its the only "sport" you can be a slow, rich, 5'10 white kid and still be all american. let's worry about bball and fball.

[nychoya3]

Truly one of the stupidest posts I've ever read. Congratulations - it wasn't easy.

Go hang out with Brodie Merrill and tell me he isn't an athlete. I'll finally note that our best football player is a 5'6'' asian kid, so I really have some trouble with your characterization of lacrosse players. Dude, you know nothing. Shut up.

[crimsonhoyaasguest]

Congrats to the Hoyas for dominating this game and putting themselves in good position to run the regular season table and get a top 4 seed. I also want to echo the condolences sent to the Boyle family.

As for this late-breaking argument, I think gamer and nyc both are right. (NYC the fact that you got so defensive basically proves that there are glimmers of truth in gamers bait).

This is an amazing sport that needs to be democratized and spread. Just because it is only played in certain regions right now and is constrained to the country-club set does not mean these kids are "slow" and that lacrosse is not a "sport". All it means is that lacrosse fans have to do their best to popularize this sport. Hopefully, one day we will see a UT vs. Gtown game, and an Allen Iversonesqe attacker take on Brodie Merrill.

As for the #25 team being 0-5, (its Princeton by the way), they are 0-4 against the nation's top ten. Odds are they finish 7-5 and tie for the Ivy championship (unless Cornell stops them). Lacrosse has 1/4 of the teams as basketball and 1/2 of the teams as football. You think if Duke starting 0-2 in bball or USC started 0-2 in fball they still wouldnt be in the Top 25? But gamer is right to some extent, the fact that this sport isnt played (seriously) in CA, FL, TX and wide swaths of the Midwest, does compromise the legitimacy of these polls and the available talent pool (but not the sport).

As a footnote, Brode Merrill is a sick athlete, but knowing Brodie, I am sure he'd be the first to say he wished this sport was played by a wider demographic, so that he'd finally be challenged for once, (outside Powell).

[nychoya3]

That was a tad defensive, wasn't it? I guess I was reacting to the rather dumb contention that the fact that lacrosse players are white a comment on the quality of the sport. But you make some very valid points. Lacrosse remains a regional game, so the pool of athletes is of course smaller. By the same token, fewer schools play it at a high level than football, so the talent isn't spread as thin. Guys like Merrill or Powell stand out as incredible athletes - guys who could star in any sport. But there are a lot of very good athletes playing the game, and moreover, guys who are very good at lacrosse.

The bottom line here is that lacrosse is a lot of fun to watch - and that's coming from someone who hadn't touched a stick until a couple years ago. It's great that we're so good at it, competing with schools like Maryland, Duke, Syracuse, Princeton, Hopkins (well, not so much that one) at anything. It's a lot like hockey is a way - if you give it a chance, there's a lot to like. Why someone would want to knock that is a little beyond me.

[crimsonhoyaasguest]

Great comment nyc. I agree 1000%. You should have responded to Gamer like that right away.

One of the reasons why this game needs to get national ASAP is because people need to stop dismissing the sport because of its demographical/regional biases. As you alluded to, its tough not to like this sport once you have seen it up close. And how about the vision of Allen Iverson as an attacker? Or a Brian Urlacher as a close defender? Itd be nice to have more Brodie Merrill's on the field at once. It would just make the game that much more exciting.

[JimmyHoya]

Hi, meet John Christmas, an African-American All-American Attackman at UVA.

Hi, meet Kyle Harrison, another AA AA Middie (and leading POY candidate) at Johns Hopkins.

Hi, meet Wallid Hajj, a Hoya AA last year of Indian desent I recall.

Finally, meet the black dude who lead the Hoyas defense after Matt Rienzo graduated....you know who....

Furthermore....you heard of the Powell family? Yeah, country club my ass. They're all from little ol' Carthage High in upstate NY. Not exactly rich. The Gaits are from a little town in Canada, etc.

Also, I'd like to introduce you to the growing lacrosse movement. It's in public schools. The private schools had them in a tradition and novelty, but now it's exploding throughout the public school systems and kids from all walks of life are playing.

I coach U13 lacrosse here in Alexandria and you might be interested to know that:

1. Lacrosse is killing off the baseball and soccer leagues in Northern Virginia and is slowly prying all the fields out of the city's hands. In Colorado this has actually become a significant problem because all their hockey players aren't return to the baseball diamonds, they are playing lacrosse because the two games are so similiar and they are naturally good at it. Are all hockey players preppy rich kids? Don't think so.

2. There's 18 kids on my team. 11 are white, the rest are black, asian , and there's one latino. It ain't perfectly even, but it's diverse and it's getting more so ever year. Additionally, only 8 kids go to private schools on the team. Your idea that everyone is an unathletic white country club snob is seriously mistaken.

Lastly, and others have said it as well, lacrosse players are obscenely athletic and fit. They have to have the endurance of soccer players, as strong and tough as football players, and skilled like basketball players with their sticks. Imagine playing basketall on a court 4 times the size, but instead of worrying about people slapping your arm, worry about titanium shafts being whipped in your ribs. Ever played hockey? Lacrosse is hockey, but played on grass and in the air. Something about "preppy slacker" doesn't jive with that....

In short, stop posting, you ignorant jackass. Have a nice day.

[FLHoya]

Guest-crimsonhoyaasguest said:

But gamer is right to some extent, the fact that this sport isnt played (seriously) in CA, FL, TX and wide swaths of the Midwest, does compromise the legitimacy of these polls and the available talent pool (but not the sport).

Lacrosse is getting there in Florida as a High School sport. When I went to High School from 1997-2000 in Palm Beach County, there was nothing to speak of--basically didn't exist as a sport. In either my junior or senior year, an extra girls sport was being added and they did a poll of all the girls at schools around the state. Lacrosse lost out to Flag Football (field hockey was the other choice).

But it's really starting to come on and in non-traditional areas also. Laxpower's got the computer ranking for the Florida South region here:

www.laxpower.com/update05/binboy/rating15.php

24 teams in basically three counties (Vero Beach being the outlier) is a good start for something that's easily only 3-4 years old. I might add that looking down the list, out of those 24 teams at absolute most half are private schools--and there are some that definitely don't fit the profile of a "lacrosse school".

Heck, my High School (Suncoast) has a lacrosse team, and it's only 45% white the last time I checked.

I didn't have any experience at all with the game until I came to Georgetown. Saw a couple indoor games on TV once. I learned the game basically by watching games out of the window of Village C and eventually going to Harbin Field myself. I could care less personally if it's seen as a country club sport. It happens in my opinion to be very entertaining to watch, and contrary to the original post starting this whole thing, I have great respect for the athletes that play the sport. Didn't ESPN.com do one of those vaguely statistically-based lists around a year ago about which is the toughest sport to play, and didn't lacrosse come out very high on the list because of the endurance factor? I'd have signed up in a second to play the sport in High School personally.

And you can't say the lacrosse powers that be aren't trying to grow their sport and break the perception some folks have of it--that is, after all, why Georgetown and Syracuse played at the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA this year.

One local reason I can think of why it might be a harder sell to get lacrosse to go big in FL, TX, and CA: Spring Football. Lacrosse teams (at least college ones) tend to have relatively large rosters, and with these being the Big Three football states, a lot of effort, money, and just numbers of athletes go into football year-round. I guess there's always the soccer team to poach, though in FL the seasons may actually overlap. Hasn't stopped PA from handling good HS lacrosse and football at the same time though.

(EDIT: NYC/Jimmy: the first thing I thought of when I read the original post was Merrill and Christmas. Walid Hajj slipped my mind. We could use you still Walid, any hidden eligibility left?)

[TBird41]

Lacrosse is catching on in Minnesota too, just like in Colorado. All the Hockey players are picking it up. And, like in CO, it's killing baseball at my high school. My senior year was the last year Blake had a winning record in baseball and there isn't a lot of talent playing baseball there anymore.

But we're really good at Lacrosse now, just like hockey.