Aggie Lacrosse suffered their first defeat last Saturday against rival t.u. It was a tough loss for a scrappy Aggie squad that clearly wanted the W after a late attempt at a comeback. The game drew a nice crowd of several hundred fans from the local lacrosse tourney that was going on that day. Sadly, despite the big crowd it seemed that the Aggie fans were woefully underrepresented. Final score was 11-9 Aggies lose.
Today we will start our review with the defense and specifically the goalie position. Goalies are incredibly important to the game of lacrosse. Great teams typically have at least one very good goalie. Much like a great football team needs an excellent OL or a great baseball team needs a great catcher every good Lacrosse team needs a good goalie. Often a thankless job and always a difficult one. Marco Robertson who played goalie versus Texas State was not dressed out as far as I could tell for the game versus t.u. The why of which I can only speculate to. Regardless it was clear that Junior Goalie Ryan Fennell was having a tough day from the word go. Let's talk positives of his performance first. His maturity and experience was very present in his good decisions on clearing the ball. A&M as a team had MUCH better performance pushing the ball down the field and into t.u.'s box. He also never gave up in a game which seemed to be getting seriously out of hand early on. He bounced back well after a bad first half in the cage to put together a performance that was good enough to give A&M a chance to win in the second half. The bad news is that he clearly lacks the x factor of Marco Robertson. Marco appears to have a desire to win in absolute spades. He is aggressive and sometimes a little overconfident but that translates to some big wins and big losses on the field. He is a gambler of a goalie and I, personally, like that! What Robertson does well that Fennell did not is quarterback his defense. Lacrosse goalies must be great on the field communicators because they are the only defensive member who can afford to watch the ball at all times. A defender who watches the ball too much risks giving up an open man. This issue manifested itself early and often during this game. Early on the issue was t.u. getting man open for easy high percentage shots. Later on the issue was giving up easy goals on set piece plays that the defense failed to slide against. The play I am thinking of accounted for five of t.u.s 11 goals and three or four in a row. The defense in general seemed unwilling to engage physically early on and mental errors cost them several points quickly at the start. The mental errors never really cleared up however the team responded physically in the fourth quarter. Towards the end of the game Aggie defenders finally began to play a physical and aggressive brand of defense and in the game of lacrosse physicality can make up for many mental errors.
The offense had a tough night as well with the big names struggling to get going early and erupting late. The offensive effort was not helped by the t.u. goalie having a career night. He took three very good chances at goals off the board and seemed at some points to be unbreakable in the cage. The offense roared back late rallying from a 10-3 deficit with just under 11 mins left to come within a goal before a late goal slammed the door shut with just 2 minutes left. Auggie Buerkle contributed 2 goals to bring his total on the season up to a team high 10. AJ Hepting went down with 2:19 left in the second quarter with an apparent leg injury but came back after halftime and looked solid on his feet while adding a goal to make it 8 on the season. GW Bodden also contributed a goal and has tallied seven so far on the season making for a very nice freshman campaign so far. Also of note was Senior attackman Bryce Tucker (#6) who contributed two goal to add to a career total of 78! One of the brightest spots on the offense was Drew Johnson a sophomore attackman (#4) who has flashed extraordinary speed and body control. When he was on the field the t.u. defense had no answer for his excellent speed. Bringing him in late really helped spark the offense and put t.u onto its heels defensively. The Aggie may have found an answer on faceoff duty this week as well. Sophomore Levi Jobe saw no action at faceoff instead the time was split roughly down the middle between Sophomore Drew Miller (#19) and Junior Alex Tartaglia (#20). Both did well although Tartaglia seemed to really stake a strong claim to the full-time duties as good faceoff wins by him produced quite a few late game goals.
Overall the team was just outmatched last Saturday. T.u. entered quarter 1 ready to play a physical and emotional game and the Aggies took time to respond. It is a credit to the team toughness that it was a close game at all.
Top 3
#1 Mental toughness
The team showed exceptional fortitude by being able to bounce back so late and from such a large deficit. One or two lucky breaks and they win this game. Late game drive like that WILL win this team a few memorable comebacks this season I bet.
#2 Answer at faceoff
Clear Drew Miller and Alex Tartaglia improved on A&Ms faceoff woes from week one. A better win percentage at the midfield helped the Aggies bring together a late rally. More of this type of play will surely help the Aggies down the road.
#3 Offensive explosion
Against a great goalie and in a tight spot the offense responded from all angles and in rapid succession. As I said last week do not count of this offense ever!
Bottom 3
#1 Mental errors
As a defense a team mentality and a unity of purpose is critical. The defense never looked fully coordinated in this game and simple mental mistakes gave up too much too fast.
#2 Ball security/fundamentals
The team simply dropped way too many balls and easy passes. Free possessions given up are unacceptable especially when it comes off bad scooping technique or dropping an easy pass.
#3 Bodies to the ball
The Aggies did a very poor job of getting men to the ball when they forced a drop or bad pass. On two occasions, I saw Aggie midfielders pull up instead of diving in to fight for the ball in a scrum.
This weekend the Aggies return to action for their first two road games of the year!
On Saturday versus TCU at TCU at 7 PM
And
On Sunday versus Texas Tech at Coppell Middle School West at Noon
I will be traveling to Fort Worth to keep up my coverage of the team thanks to my wonderful Fiance for footing the bill!
Gig Em!
Today we will start our review with the defense and specifically the goalie position. Goalies are incredibly important to the game of lacrosse. Great teams typically have at least one very good goalie. Much like a great football team needs an excellent OL or a great baseball team needs a great catcher every good Lacrosse team needs a good goalie. Often a thankless job and always a difficult one. Marco Robertson who played goalie versus Texas State was not dressed out as far as I could tell for the game versus t.u. The why of which I can only speculate to. Regardless it was clear that Junior Goalie Ryan Fennell was having a tough day from the word go. Let's talk positives of his performance first. His maturity and experience was very present in his good decisions on clearing the ball. A&M as a team had MUCH better performance pushing the ball down the field and into t.u.'s box. He also never gave up in a game which seemed to be getting seriously out of hand early on. He bounced back well after a bad first half in the cage to put together a performance that was good enough to give A&M a chance to win in the second half. The bad news is that he clearly lacks the x factor of Marco Robertson. Marco appears to have a desire to win in absolute spades. He is aggressive and sometimes a little overconfident but that translates to some big wins and big losses on the field. He is a gambler of a goalie and I, personally, like that! What Robertson does well that Fennell did not is quarterback his defense. Lacrosse goalies must be great on the field communicators because they are the only defensive member who can afford to watch the ball at all times. A defender who watches the ball too much risks giving up an open man. This issue manifested itself early and often during this game. Early on the issue was t.u. getting man open for easy high percentage shots. Later on the issue was giving up easy goals on set piece plays that the defense failed to slide against. The play I am thinking of accounted for five of t.u.s 11 goals and three or four in a row. The defense in general seemed unwilling to engage physically early on and mental errors cost them several points quickly at the start. The mental errors never really cleared up however the team responded physically in the fourth quarter. Towards the end of the game Aggie defenders finally began to play a physical and aggressive brand of defense and in the game of lacrosse physicality can make up for many mental errors.
The offense had a tough night as well with the big names struggling to get going early and erupting late. The offensive effort was not helped by the t.u. goalie having a career night. He took three very good chances at goals off the board and seemed at some points to be unbreakable in the cage. The offense roared back late rallying from a 10-3 deficit with just under 11 mins left to come within a goal before a late goal slammed the door shut with just 2 minutes left. Auggie Buerkle contributed 2 goals to bring his total on the season up to a team high 10. AJ Hepting went down with 2:19 left in the second quarter with an apparent leg injury but came back after halftime and looked solid on his feet while adding a goal to make it 8 on the season. GW Bodden also contributed a goal and has tallied seven so far on the season making for a very nice freshman campaign so far. Also of note was Senior attackman Bryce Tucker (#6) who contributed two goal to add to a career total of 78! One of the brightest spots on the offense was Drew Johnson a sophomore attackman (#4) who has flashed extraordinary speed and body control. When he was on the field the t.u. defense had no answer for his excellent speed. Bringing him in late really helped spark the offense and put t.u onto its heels defensively. The Aggie may have found an answer on faceoff duty this week as well. Sophomore Levi Jobe saw no action at faceoff instead the time was split roughly down the middle between Sophomore Drew Miller (#19) and Junior Alex Tartaglia (#20). Both did well although Tartaglia seemed to really stake a strong claim to the full-time duties as good faceoff wins by him produced quite a few late game goals.
Overall the team was just outmatched last Saturday. T.u. entered quarter 1 ready to play a physical and emotional game and the Aggies took time to respond. It is a credit to the team toughness that it was a close game at all.
Top 3
#1 Mental toughness
The team showed exceptional fortitude by being able to bounce back so late and from such a large deficit. One or two lucky breaks and they win this game. Late game drive like that WILL win this team a few memorable comebacks this season I bet.
#2 Answer at faceoff
Clear Drew Miller and Alex Tartaglia improved on A&Ms faceoff woes from week one. A better win percentage at the midfield helped the Aggies bring together a late rally. More of this type of play will surely help the Aggies down the road.
#3 Offensive explosion
Against a great goalie and in a tight spot the offense responded from all angles and in rapid succession. As I said last week do not count of this offense ever!
Bottom 3
#1 Mental errors
As a defense a team mentality and a unity of purpose is critical. The defense never looked fully coordinated in this game and simple mental mistakes gave up too much too fast.
#2 Ball security/fundamentals
The team simply dropped way too many balls and easy passes. Free possessions given up are unacceptable especially when it comes off bad scooping technique or dropping an easy pass.
#3 Bodies to the ball
The Aggies did a very poor job of getting men to the ball when they forced a drop or bad pass. On two occasions, I saw Aggie midfielders pull up instead of diving in to fight for the ball in a scrum.
This weekend the Aggies return to action for their first two road games of the year!
On Saturday versus TCU at TCU at 7 PM
And
On Sunday versus Texas Tech at Coppell Middle School West at Noon
I will be traveling to Fort Worth to keep up my coverage of the team thanks to my wonderful Fiance for footing the bill!
Gig Em!