So the boys are currently in Foxboro doing Big J Journo shit for the 2018 NCAA Lacrosse Championship Weekend. Not a big deal or anything. That’s not what I’m here to do. I’m not here to make a huge deal out of the fact that The Crease Dive is clearly the most popular lax podcast of the weekend so far. This weekend is about all the dudes out there on the field. It’s not about us. Even if everybody keeps trying to make it about us. That’s just not who we are. But yeah, the boys are in Foxboro to cover Championship Weekend and day 1 is officially a wrap. We came into this weekend with 3 games left on the NCAA DI Men’s Lacrosse schedule. We’re now only down to 1. The season started back on February 1st with 2 teams playing–Vermont and Furman–and now the season will end on May 28th with 2 teams playing–Yale and Duke–this time for a National Championship. Another season of college lacrosse just flew by but before we get all sentimental and shit, there are still some games to break down and some lax to talk. So let’s just get right into it.

You can subscribe/download/listen to the Championship Weekend Day 1 Recap Show on iTunes right here

And for those of you without iTunes, you can check out the episode right here on SoundCloud

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Game 1: Yale, 20 (!!!) – Albany, 11

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I mean… it sucks. It sucks because there was so much to look forward to with this game. But this was an ass beating from start to finish. Just 4 minutes into the game, Yale was already up 4-0 and the only one time that Albany touched the ball, they turned it over. Yale had their foot on Albany’s throat from the very start and aside from Connor Fields putting on a beauty of a 2nd-half performance to close out his career as a Dane, Albany never really got anything going. They couldn’t make a stop defensively and I’m pretty sure Yale was shooting 100% through at least the first 7 goals. And then whenever Albany got the ball on offense, Yale’s D was so goddamn aggressive and they were bullying Albany. This Yale team is huge and they are athletic and I have to imagine that playing against them is pretty comparable to taking a Mark McGwire swing directly to the taint.

Ben Reeves was a goddamn monster all day long. He had 9 points on 4 goals and 5 assists on the day.

He proved why he was named the USILA Player of the Year because there wasn’t a single thing Albany could do to stop this guy. They tried face-guarding him early on in the game and quickly realized that Yale is too deep to rely on your team playing great 5v5 defense to make stops. But even when he was being shut off, you could see him directing the flow of the offense, setting picks, doing things to stay involved. And then once they stopped locking him off? Well you can’t unchain Ben Reeves because it’s just too easy for him to kill you when the ball is in his stick. He is so good at finding the open man that really your only option when he’s dodging is to just press out on the other 5 guys and give him nobody to pass the ball to.

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The only issue with that plan is that he’s so big and so strong and so fast that he’ll burn your ass 1v1 if you make him. So yeah. Essentially what I’m trying to say here is that there is just no possible way to defend Ben Reeves. Honestly I think it was a little disrespectful that they didn’t hand him the Tewaaraton Award right there on the field after this game ended.

Speaking of disrespectful, let’s talk about Matt Gaudet real quick.

Matt Gaudet is the best crease attackman in the nation. Gaudet had 6 goals on the day and I don’t even think he had to break a sweat to do it. He is so smart and so smooth and as soon as his defender turns his head away for just a split second, he’s already wide the fuck open on the door step. But that’s not even what I’m here to talk about with Matt Gaudet. Because I don’t know if I mentioned this or not but we were on the sidelines for yesterday’s game. Here’s another example to prove it.

So being on the sidelines, we could hear and see some things on the field that you just don’t get to hear and see on TV. And what we heard and saw out of Matt Gaudet yesterday was the biggest dickhead in the world. And I mean that in a flattering way. The kid is a Canadian so this should all make sense. But he was chirping from the very first whistle until the end of the game yesterday. Talking shit after each and every goal. Hell, he even decided to join in on the Albany defensive huddle after one of his goals. Matt Gaudet put in the most disrespectful performance of the season yesterday and I loved every second of it. He was a true villain. A kid from Yale who does nothing but catch some passes on the crease, stuff them in the back of the net, and tells you to go fuck yourselves afterwards. It sucks that it’s taken me this long into the season to realize it but Matt Gaudet might just be my favorite player in college lacrosse.

So yeah. Yale’s offense was incredible yesterday and Albany’s defense looked brutal. It’s hard for me to believe that Yale’s offense could have played any better and it’s hard for me to believe that Albany’s defense could have played any worse. That combination right there gets you a 20-11 blowout for the final score. Like I said–it sucks. When you get to Championship Weekend, you’re hoping to see these tight games and hopefully even an overtime game or two. To see a complete beatdown like that isn’t great. But credit goes to Yale because they proved why they’ve been one of the best teams in the nation this year. They were clearly the better team yesterday and now they’ll have a chance to play for their first National title.

Before we move on from Yale vs, I just want to give a quick shoutout to Connor Fields. He ends his career at Albany as the 2nd all-time points leader in NCAA Lacrosse history. An unbelievable career for #5 and even though it’s tough to see his career end the way it did yesterday, you can’t say enough about everything this kid has done. And even more impressively is the fact that he still put up 3 goals and 5 points on a busted knee in an NCAA semifinal game. I’m sure we’ll finally get the injury report soon about that knee and I have a feeling he was playing on something torn. Hockey tough as a mother fucker. All heart, all grit, the sport of lacrosse needs more guys like Connor Fields.

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Game 2: Duke, 13 – Maryland, 8

I’ll be honest. Both games yesterday were a slight disappointment. I mean game 2 of the day at least got pretty interesting at one point but there were really only 3 waves to the game. Duke got off to a hot start right away and built up a 6-0 lead at one point.

It looked like we were about to get a repeat of game #1 but this is a Maryland program who was making their 5th straight Final Four appearance. The NCAA Semifinals are essentially just another game to them. So even after going down 6-0 in the first half, they knew this game wasn’t over. So the Terps went on a little run of their own. They climbed back to make it an 8-7 game and this goal right here is when the collective buttholes in the Duke section got so tight that they were completely shut.

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A Tim Rotanz truck stick followed up by a Bubba Fairman bomb. From the senior playing in his 4th straight Final Four game to the freshman playing in his first. This goal was a metaphor for how this Maryland program doesn’t rebuild, they reload. But that was as close as Maryland would get because even though the Terps keep reloading, Duke is just too fucking deep. Like wayyyyyyy too deep. So deep that they had 3 players with hat tricks in that game yesterday.

Freshman Joe Robertson had 3 and 1 on the day. That assist was one of Justin Guterding’s 3 assists of the day to go along with his 3 goals. That now gives Guterding 210 career goals to keep adding on to his lead as the All-Time NCAA DI Goal leader. A true friend of the pod.

And then of course there was the birthday boy, Nakeie Montgomery. I’ve been talking about Nakeie all tournament so far. This kid has 6 goals in the regular season. Which, for a freshman, isn’t bad at all. I mean it’s not exactly incredible but it’s a pretty solid first year of college lacrosse. But in the tournament this year? Nakeie Montgomery has put up 8 goals in 3 games.

He had 3 in the first round game against Villanova. He had 2 in the quarterfinals against Hopkins. And then he had a hat trick at Gillette yesterday against the reigning Champs. The clutch gene is extra strong in this kid and the celly game is as well.

So yeah. When you’ve got 3 guys on your team scoring hat tricks and your senior goaltender Danny Fowler is an absolute brick wall in the cage?

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That’s a pretty decent recipe to get your ass into the National Championship game. Also–just want to give a quick shoutout to Danny Fowler and JT Giles-Harris. The boys were this week’s guests on the podcast and with that win against Maryland yesterday, they continue the streak of guests going undefeated in the next game they play in after coming on The Crease Dive. No current college lacrosse player who has come on TCD has ever lost a game immediately following their appearance on the podcast. That is a true stat. You can look it up. And now with only 1 game left on the season, getting on The Crease Dive could very much be the deciding factor on who brings home the hardware tomorrow afternoon. I’m sure the guests will be lining up around the block.

P.S. – We’ll be at the DII and DIII Championships today. I don’t get to watch enough of those games as much as I’d like and I definitely don’t watch enough to have any real takes on those games today. But I just want the record to show that I’ll be riding with Saint Leo in the DII game and Wesleyan in the DIII game. Have a day, boys.

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