As I’ve been posting about over the past couple days, the Michigan lacrosse team is not only participating in the MCLA National Tournament, but also excelling in Denver. They defeated Texas and Sonoma State over the first two rounds, and will face Colorado in the semifinal game. Before we start to look forward, let’s recap the past couple games.

Michigan 11-5 Texas
Has has been the case several times this season, the Wolverines got off to a slow offensive start when they faced the Longhorns. However, the defense was similarly slow-starting on this day, allowing Texas to take a 3-1 lead before the Michigan team started humming. Michigan scored the next 5 goals and never looked back. In the second half, Michigan got off to another slow start offensively, but they didn’t allow Texas to score and were able to work through the offensive slump, scoring 3 in the quarter. Though Trevor Yealy led the team (and the nation) in scoring this season, it was senior Peter Vasher who was the offensive star on this day, scoring 5 goals for Michigan. It’s a shame he was hurt for much of the year, because the Michigan offense could have benefitted from another bigtime scorer. Mark Stone played the first 3 quarters in net for Michigan, and Andrew Fowler played the fourth.

MFlowBlue recap – Official recap

Michigan 22-6 Sonoma State
Perhaps inspired by their own lackadaisical first half effort against Texas, Michigan was determined not to have a slow start in round 2 against the Seawolves of Sonoma State. As the sun set on Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, Michigan led 3-1 just 5 minutes into the game, on their way to a stunning 17-4 lead… at halftime. Michigan’s defense was operating as efficiently as its offense, and to quote @UMichLacrosse “Eylachar: One man clearing machine.” Trevor Yealy scored 5 for the Wolverines, Riley Kearns and Wes McGowan each completed hat tricks, Kevin Zorovich had 4 points for Michigan, and 11 different Michigan players scored in all. Mark Stone and Andrew Fowler split time in net, with Stone getting the starting nod. Michigan scored their second-highest output of the year, trailing only their 33-8 pounding of Eastern Michigan on March 20th, by putting 22 goals on the Seawolves. Of course, they probably could have scored many more, given the uneven distribution of goals over the halves.

MFlowBlue recap – Official recap

Colorado
As we enter the third round of the tournament, Michigan will finally face an opponent that they’ve already seen before in the Colorado Buffaloes. The game will take place tomorrow night at 8PM Mountain time (10Pm Eastern) in the stadium at Dick’s Sporting Good Park.

Colorado finished the season 15-6, with a 5-0 record in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse Conference, with a nailbiter 11-10 loss to BYU in the conference final. Their body of work over the season earned them an at-large bid to the MCLA Tournament, and the national #5 seed. An 11-3 decision over UCSB got them through the first round, and they took down #4 Minnesota-Duluth in round 2 for the right to face Michigan.

Michigan thrashed the then-#4 Buffs 13-4 in the home opener at Oosterbaan Fieldhouse. Michigan led 9-2 at halftime, adding a 4-2 second-half advantage as well. Trevor Yealy, Aaron Hodari, and Riley Kearns had 5, 3, and 2 goals for Michigan, respectively. 4 different Colorado players scored. In addition to facing each other earlier this year, Michigan and Colorado also had several opponents in common. CU lost 11-3 to Michigan State (Michigan pounded the Spartans 21-9), beat BYU 10-8 in Provo and lost 11-0 at a neutral site (Michigan prevailed 14-11 in Ann Arbor over the Cougs), lost a home game 8-7 to Sonoma State (Michigan beat them on a neutral field yesterday by a rather lopsided score – see above), and beat Colorado State 11-4 (Michigan won 16-3 against the Rams).

James Blackburn led Colorado in scoring on the year, notching 36 goals and 14 assists. Behind him were Darren Hulick and Joel Packer with 33 and 31 goals, respectively. Josh Albrecht and Tyler Snyder each had 23 point for Colorado. In net, senior Kevin Moriarty played the majority of the year, but 3 freshmen also saw duty for the Buffaloes. Against Michigan, Blackburn, Hulick, Snyder, and Michael Emerson each scored a goal. Moriarty played almost the entire game, before taking a penalty with just over a minute to go, and Will Brown was placed between the pipes.

Who’s Left?
One of the advantages of playing a tough schedule over the course of the year is that Michigan has already faced every team left in the bracket. Aside from Colorado, who they’ll play tomorrow, (2) BYU and (3) Chapman will square off in the other semifinal game. Michigan beat Chapman 13-10 in Orange, CA, and took down BYU 14-11 at Oosterbaan. Neither team will be a mystery to Michigan, nor are they a mystery to each other. They played in Provo at the end of the regular season, and Chapman walked away victims of a 10-7 defeat at the hands of the Cougars. BYU and Michigan are the only two teams Chapman lost to this year.

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Yes, I’m writing a preview for a lacrosse game. That’s dedication, homes.

The Texas Longhorns captured the #16 seed in the MCLA National Tournament, granting them the right to face #1 overall seed Michigan. Hooray Texas! So, how did the Longhorns get to this point, and what should we expect from them on Tuesday?

Texas earned their bid to the MCLA Tournament by winning the Lonestar Alliance, a conference composed, predictably, mostly of teams from Texas. They are 16-3 entering the Michigan game, with the losses coming to SMU, Chapman, and Illinois (Michigan fans might recognize two of those teams – more on that later). In the LSA Playoffs, they gained revenge on SMU in the semifinals before defeating the Mean Green of North Texas in the finals. Judging by the fact that their auto-bid was for the dead last spot in the tournament, and no other team from the conference managed to make the field, it’s safe to say that the LSA is not one of the stronger conferences out there.

Chapman and Illinois, as hinted above, are common opponents for the Wolverines and Longhorns. Michigan fared better, to say the least. Against Chapman, Michigan played in front of a crowd of 2500 fans in Chapman’s own house (which, coincidentally, only has a listed capacity of 2000). On the road in a hostile environment, the Wolverines were able to mount a second-half comeback and take a 13-10 victory. When the Longhorns played Chapman, it was at a neutral site in San Diego, and the Panthers were able to hold Texas to just 4 goals all game, winning 14-4. In their respective games against the Illini, the situation is somewhat similar. Texas lost a 10-7 home game to the Illini, while Michigan came away with a 12-5 neutral-site victory (Lake Forest High School is closer to Illinois, and in their own state, but it is also the alma mater of Wolverines Anthony Hrusovsky and We McGowan). So, based on common opponents, Michigan is the better team. Of course, performance against common opponents is far from a perfect metric, but when Texas was essentially dominated by the teams, while Michigan did the dominating in their matchups, it’s a testament to perhaps a different level of team ability.

Texas had 7 players named to All-Conference teams. Freshman Attack Mid Johnny McKnight paced the team in scoring, with 42 goals and 11 assists on the year. He was named 1st-team All-LSA and is an All-American candidate. Joining him on the first team was Senior Defenseman Max Atherton. Three Longhorns landed on the second team. Senior Attack Evans Swann was the team’s second-leading scorer, with 37 goals and 15 assists, while sophomore midfielder William Lawson was third on the team with 23 goals and 24 assist. Joining them was senior defensman Mark Anderlik. Making all-conference honorable mention were Junior Attack Doug Boyer (38 pts) and Senior Midfielder Alex Kroviak (26 pts). The main man in goal for Texas was Senior Towers Wilen, who allowed 6.9 goals per game, and saved 59% of the shots he faced.

The game takes place at 4PM (local, 6PM Eastern) on Tuesday at Dick’s Sporting Good Park. If you aren’t able to make it to the Denver area (which I assume is the case for just about everyone), you can follow play-by-play on GameTracker at the Lacrosse Website, or on Twitter @UmichLacrosse.

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So, this is odd to do after a weekend in which the team didn’t play, but here goes. 

Chapman
A replay of the victory over Chapman aired yesterday on ESPNU at noon. This is notable in itself, because club sports are rarely on television at all, much less one so niche-oriented as lacrosse. Most Michigan Lacrosse fans hadn’t had a chance to see the game, myself among them. The game was a tale of two halves between the then-#1 (Chapman) and #2 (Michigan) teams in the country. Of course, as the Wolverines are still undefeated and this game happened over spring break, Michigan ended up victorious. However, it didn’t look like that would be the outcome at halftime. With less than 30 seconds to go in the first half, Riley Kearns scored an unassisted goal for the Wolverines, but they still trailed by 3 at the break.

The second half was a completely different story. Chapman came out of the locker room looking to maintain possession, and do everything they could to keep the Wolverines off the board. However, Trevor Yealy and Anthony Hrusovsky were ably to break through early in the 3rd quarter to bring the game within a goal. Chapman responded with two goals of their own, re-widening the lead to three. It was all Michigan from there, though, as the Wolverines notched 4 goals before the third quarter ended, to take a one-score lead into the final frame. In the fourth, they were the ones maintaining possession and killing time, though they managed the stretch the final lead to 13-10.

Michigan got hat tricks from Yealy (5), Hrsovsky, and Kevin Zorovich, in addition to single goals from Kearns and David Rogers. Mark Stone started the game in net, but was replaced by fellow sophomore Andrew Fowler after allowing 5 goals in the first period. Fowler allowed just 5 through the remainder of the game. Perhaps the star of the game for Michigan, or at least one of the men who helped turn the tide in the second half, was faceoff specialist David Reinhard. He finished the game 15-25 at the “X,” and gave Michigan momentum throughout the third and fourth quarters, as they would score a goal and get the ball right back, thanks to Reinhard.

Up Next
After a much-needed rest, Michigan returns to action this weekend at Birmingham Seaholm High School against Michigan State. The neutral-site contest is known as the Great Lakes Lacrosse Classic, and starts at 7PM. The Wolverines would certainly benefit from a sympathetic crowd, though the game is technically hosted by the Spartans.

The following week is the MCLA conference tournament at Saline High School. More information to come on that as seedings and game times are released, following this weekend’s play.

Etc.
A tip o’ the hat to Brian at MGoBlog for bringing MFlowBlue to my attention. The site is a Michigan lacrosse blog, run by a gentleman with the handle “nstandif,” who we can assume is injured Wolverine midfielder Nick Standiford, and features highlight videos of several games by Sick Lax Productions (aka Wes McGowan). If you’ve never had the chance to check out the lacrosse team, this will certainly give you an opportunity to see what they’re all about.

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