2010 MCLA Championship Preview – Division I Part I
Thursday, May 6th, 2010
By Tim Haslam
It’s that time of year again lax fans – time for the MCLA Championship. There are many questions to be asked this year. Can Michigan three-peat? Can Chapman finally get past Michigan and hoist the trophy? Should Colorado really have made the tournament, even though they have a losing record? Only time will tell us the answers to the many questions. Rather than stating my opinion about each match-up, I’ll let the coaches do the talking.
No. 1 Michigan v. No. 16 Texas State
Record: 14-1, 4-0
How they made it to Denver: Michigan is the automatic qualifier from the Central Collegiate Lacrosse Association after beating Michigan State, 13-11, in the CCLA final.
CollegeLAX: What do you know about Texas State and how are you going to prepare for them?
Coach John Paul: At this point all we know is that Texas State won the LSA and had a great season. I know Chris Park, and I respect his coaching ability. He and I come from very similar professional backgrounds. We will do our due diligence this week and try to gather as much information as we can about the Bobcats so we are prepared next Tuesday.
CollegeLAX: What players should fans watch for to make a difference in the tournament, specifically, who is peaking right now and is playing really well?
Coach John Paul: We have a lot of guys who are playing well. I think everyone knows about our attack. Yealy and Zorovich are fun to watch, and Thomas Paras is hitting his stride again recently after slowing down a bit in mid-season. David Reinhard has been doing a great job facing off. Harry Freid continues to match up against the other team’s most dangerous attackmen.
Record: 12-3, 4-1
How they made it to Denver: Texas State is the automatic qualifier from the Lonestar Alliance after beating Texas, 12-10, in the LSA final.
CollegeLAX: What are your players saying about playing Michigan in the first round?
Coach Chris Park: My guys are excited to match up against Michigan. We have talked all year about competing at the highest levels of the MCLA and to make this a program changing season and we have accomplished that. Now, we have the opportunity to go up against a perennial power in the MCLA, on our league’s biggest stage in Denver, wow, it doesn’t get any better than that.
CollegeLAX: What does the MCLA world need to know about Texas State Lacrosse that they don’t know already?
Coach Chris Park: The men that make up this program are extremely special individuals. Four years ago, it started with a freshman class that bought into the goal to change a culture, a perception, and a win loss record. Over time, their hard work, and their vision has spread and encapsulated the other quality young men in the program to bring us to this point today. Winning a conference championship, and inserting Texas State’s name on a trophy dominated by two schools is the culmination of countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears. Now, they receive the ultimate reward to compete at the MCLA National Tournament, and they are not taking this moment for granted, and are traveling to Denver to compete for a National Title.
No. 2 Colorado State v. No. 15 Boston College
Record: 16-1, 4-0
How they made it to Denver: Colorado State is the automatic qualifier from the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse Conference after beating BYU, 15-10, in the RMLC final.
CollegeLAX: What do you know about Boston College and how are you going to prepare for them?
Coach Alex Smith: We’ve played BC in each of the last two years, so there is some sense of familiarity. Both games were close and a lot of fun. They play hard and they are well coached. I don’t know much about this year’s team, especially since Coach Pano is no longer with them, but I do know they have one of the best LSM’s in the country and great goaltending. That’s usually a good recipe for success in lacrosse.
CollegeLAX: What are CSU’s goals for the tournament?
Coach Alex Smith: I think philosophically, our goal is to play our best lacrosse of the season over the course of the tournament. But our more tangible goal is to win four games. But that starts with just one on Tuesday. If we are lucky and focused enough to beat BC, then we’ll worry about the next one after that.
Record: 11-2, 5-0
How they made it to Denver: Boston College is the automatic qualifier from the Pioneer Collegiate Lacrosse League after beating New Hampshire, 10-9, in the PCLL final.
CollegeLAX: What players should fans watch for to make a difference in the tournament, specifically, who is peaking right now and is really playing well?
Coach Pat McCavanagh: If fans want to watch what leadership and strenght look like, watch #23, PCLL Defensive Player of the Year Mark Pohlman. He is a coach on the field and anchors our tough defense. Tom Luckey, #12, is one of our Captains and is the leader of our midfield. He refuses to let our team give up, no matter what the circumstance and he can almost single handedly dictate the pace of this game. Surprisingly, even with these upperclassmen as leaders, we have a handful of 1st year players that have been huge contributors. LSM, #17 Mike Slovak is red headed animal, and Freshman #32 Mike Racanelli is what pure talent looks like. Our Freshman Goaltender #34 Nick Shea has sparked our 11 game winning streak.
CollegeLAX: What are BC’s goals for the tournament?
Coach Pat McCavanagh: I was brought on board to coach Boston College because the team was at a tipping point and needed a few more ingredients to catapult them into the upper echelon of the MCLA. The tournament committee might not agree, and the teams west of the Hudson might not agree, but guess what, we’re there. With the help of 13 new players on the roster and the mix of returning leaders, we’ve gone streaking and I believe have the longest win streak in MCLA. I’d like to be humble and say we’d like to have a good showing and compete well, but that isn’t our goal. Our goal is to flat out win this tournament. These young men are more like a family than a lacrosse team and that has been the key to our success.
No. 3 Arizona State v. No. 14 Cal Poly
Record: 13-3, 5-0
How they made it to Denver: Arizona State is the automatic qualifier from the Southwestern Lacrosse Conference after beating Chapman, 12-11, in the SLC final.
CollegeLAX: What players should fans watch for to make a difference in the tournament, specifically, who is peaking right now and is really playing well?
Coach Chris Malone: We’ve got a defensemen, Ian Anderson, it’s his first season, he was up against Conner Martin from Chapman over the weekend and did a really good job on him. I just don’t think people know about him since it’s his first year playing. Another kid is Stephen Turner, plays midfield for us. He plays offense, he plays defense, he plays man-down. He’s just a kid that is always on the field. He might not be in all the articles but he makes big plays. He does really well on ground balls for us and is under the radar because of some of the other players we have.
CollegeLAX: What are ASU’s goals for the tournament?
Coach Chris Malone: Our goal, wether it is for a regular season game or any game, is to not beat ourselves. If things don’t go our way and we end up on the wrong side of the game, we need to walk off that field saying ‘they were a great time who deserved to win’. Our goal is to make a team earn the win and don’t beat ourselves.
Record: 12-4, 6-0
How they made it to Denver: Cal Poly is the automatic qualifier from the Western Collegiate Lacrosse League after beating Cal, 13-7, in the WCLL final.
CollegeLAX: What players should fans watch for to make a difference in the tournament, specifically, who is peaking right now and is really playing well?
Coach Marc Lea: Colin Mason, Senior attackmen, was named the WCLL offensive player of the year. He’s really the key to our offense, and can feed the ball extremely well. Matt Graupmann, Sophomore attackmen, has been on fire recently. He had 5 goals in the WCLL semi-final and 3 goals in the final. Matt Rudow, Junior midfielder/face-off. Matt has been dominant on face-offs in the 2nd half of the season. And we are going to need him to perform well in order to defeat the Sun Devils. Matt is also a difficult matchup on the offensive end because of his size and speed, and is capable of taking over if he’s on his game. Ryan Alletag, Senior defensive midfielder. Ryan has incredible drive and determination. He plays tremendous one on one defense, but his greatest asset is that he just works harder than everyone else on the field. He will find a way to come up with a key ground ball, pick the right time to double team, and clear the ball the length of the field if necessary. He does all the little things that makes our team successful.
CollegeLAX: What are your team’s goals for the tournament?
Coach Mark Lea: Our goal is to go further than any Cal Poly team has gone, which is to the semi-final round. If we can achieve that, by winning our first two games, than we believe we have an excellent shot of bringing home the national title.
No. 4 Chapman v. No. 13 Illinois
Record: 14-2, 5-0
How they made it to Denver: Chapman received an at-large bid after losing to Arizona State, 12-11, in the Southwestern Lacrosse Conference final.
CollegeLAX: What do you know about Illinois and how are you going to prepare for them?
Coach Michael Wood: I really don’t know that much about them. The only common opponent was FSU whom they lost to 17-11. We plan to play our up tempo style and see if they can keep pace. Offensively they have a couple of good attackmen (Dickson, and Pfiffer) with a lot of their points so we will have to match up our on them. I think that our 2 top defenders match up pretty good against anybody, and at the other end they need to figure out how to slow our offense down. We have a lot of options on offense and it will be important to find the Hot hands and ride those players. In this tournament the teams that don’t beat themselves will be the toughest opponents. Penalties, mistakes, turnovers, and a Hot Goalie will be critical to every teams success. We are going back to the fundamentals this week in practice, because the little things are what is going to make the difference in the close games.
CollegeLAX: What are Chapman’s goals for the tournament?
Coach Michael Wood: We have had the same goal every year and that is to win it. Anything short of a National Championship won’t be good enough. Chaptown Nation is very excited to be coming back to Denver, we have had a couple of good tournament runs the last two years now I think that we are poised and confident to give another outstanding effort and with a little luck maybe we can take home a MCLA Championship.
Record: 12-2, 6-0
How they made it to Denver: Illinois is the automatic qualifier from the Great Rivers Lacrosse Conference after beating Wisconsin, 12-8, in the GRLC final.
CollegeLAX: What do you know about Chapman and how are you going to prepare for them?
Coach Joe Dodson: [They have] great offensive weapons, looking to create scoring opportunities in transition, fast fast fast. Taking them out of their game and putting them in ours will be our main focus. Controlling the clock and time of possession in our offensive half will be a key to winning this game.
CollegeLAX: What players should fans watch for to make a difference in the tournament, specifically, who is peaking right now and is playing really well?
Coach Joe Dodson: Dan Dickson has had an amazing season so far, just has a natural talent to put the ball in the back of the cage. Eric Rakoczy has been seeing the ball great in our last few games and I expect him to continue this trend in Denver. Finally Bob Ridlen started off slow but has found his “swagger” our strongest midfield dodger and shooter, I’ll be looking for him to contribute Tuesday as well.
ATLANTA (March 17, 2010) - The fourth Prodigy poll of the 2010 MCLA season was released earlier today. And the same two teams remain at the top of the rankings.
