Men's Lacrosse
May 29, 2006
Le Moyne defense holds while offense warms up
Monday, May 29, 2006
By Dave Rahme
Staff writer, Syracuse Post-Standard http://www.syracuse.com/
Direct Link to story: http://www.syracuse.com/sports/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/114889326560540.xml&coll=1&thispage=2
Philadelphia - There was no drama this time. Just defense. No need for overtime heroics. Just defense. No sense of a national-championship dream withering on the vine. Just defense.
The top-ranked Le Moyne College lacrosse team allowed only two goals over the final 30 minutes Sunday afternoon and defeated Dowling 12-5 before a crowd of 23,990 at Lincoln Financial Field to earn its second Division II national championship in three years.
It was a far cry from the drama that accompanied the team's 11-10 double-overtime victory two years ago in which Brandon Spillett tied the score in the waning seconds of regulation and then won it with a diving shot across the crease in sudden-death.
"To tell you the truth, I feel that we should have lost that first year," senior All-America close defender Travis Tarr said. "We kind of felt that we snuck out with one. But today we went out with a bang, and we showed everybody why we're the best team in the nation. We were the best hands down, and we knew it."
"I think there were still an awful lot of doubters," head coach Dan Sheehan said. "You know, Brandon bailed us out on the last one. But I'm not sure anybody could have left today not knowing, hey, this is a good team."
Sunday, on the same field in which Cortland stunned top-seeded Salisbury 13-12 in overtime to win the Division III title, the Dolphins (18-0) let underdog Dowling know there would be no repeat performance in the D-II game.
Yes, the Dolphins started slowly on offense, struggled at the faceoff X early and ran into a hot goaltender in Dowling's Nick Tracey. They even allowed a couple of early goals. But once they settled down, it was all over. Emphatically.
"We were a little nervous early," said senior goalie Jared Corcoran, who had 12 saves. "Once we got comfortable and started playing as a team, we found our groove. It was a total team effort, as it has been all season with this defense."
"The story today was the defense bought us 30 minutes," Sheehan said. "They bought us 30 minutes for the offense to get going."
And once it did, expanding an uncomfortable 5-3 halftime lead to 8-4 late in the third quarter, the game was over. There was no reason to believe that Dowling (12-2) could do anything more than continue to struggle against the best D-II defense in the nation, and it did.
Sheehan said he was so confident that his team had control of the situation even though it was up only two at the half that he really had little to say during the break.
"It took us longer to get to our locker room than it did for our
halftime talk," he said. "I think what I said was, 'OK, offense we
have to get it going. We've got a defense that kept us in this
game.' "
"They're that good," Dowling coach Tim Boyle said. "Their team
defense all game long was on our shooters' hands. We simply
couldn't get off the shots we wanted to against them."
Sheehan said he never saw the defensive gem coming, even though Le Moyne was allowing only 3.72 goals per game. Sheehan watched the Golden Lions dismantle Mercyhurst 16-4 in the semifinals and felt that his offense would need to win the game.
"I told the defense not to worry about it, that the offense would bail them out this time," he said. "If you had told me we would hold this team to five goals, I would have said you were crazy."
Yet, that is exactly what the Dolphins did, giving the game's Most Outstanding Player winner Mike McDonald (four goals, one assist), sophomore Brian Cost (West Genesee; 2-1), senior Jason Longo (Cazenovia; 2-1) and junior Matt Cassalia (West Genny; 2-0) plenty of time to get untracked.
Once they did, there was little to do but watch the seconds count down to a wild celebration on the field that was in stark contrast to the workmanlike fashion in which the Dolphins disposed of their foe. It would have been more fitting for them to simply punch the time clock and head for home after another day's work.
"We had the mentality that we were going to come in here and win this," senior defensive midfielder Nate Evans said. "It was a little expected, but still it's a huge joy. It's amazing."
"We just got down to business," senior middie Craig Rosecrans said. "Everything went smooth, just how we practiced. We said at the beginning of the week it's about us. It's not about them. If we execute we'll win."
"Once we started to click as a team after the first few minutes," Tarr said, "it was over, really."
Those in attendance failed to see it quite so early, but the Dolphins knew it. They knew there were would be no drama on the stage this time, no need for overtime heroics, no fearing that their title dream could be slipping away.
