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mat1992

Will they take a step back next season?

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Zach Goodrich is one of the great defensive middies to ever play at Towson. Brendan Sunday had one of the great individual seasons for any attackman with 49 goals and 25 assists. That's 74 points which places him in fourth place all time for most points in a season. His 49 goals tied Kevin Sturm for second-most all-time.  Then there's Alex Woodall, arguably the greatest face-off man of all time. Though Mark Goers, Tim Lucky and Justin Berry are in the mix. 

How in the world do you replace those three players? You don't. You are not going to replace a face-off guy that won 74% of his face-offs so you have to rely on strong play, better defense and improved efficiency on offense. Fortunately, the defense returns Koby Smith, who had 10 points, 20 caused turnovers and will make one of the top three All-American teams. He's just a sophomore. Grey Bodden is also back as a senior. They can move freshman Mo Sillah to close defense to replace Chad Patterson, who is graduating or they can move 6-7 freshman Grant Zungalia to close and keep Silah at LSM. The key is finding a Goodrich replacement. Not many guys can run like him at 6-2, 200. That's why moving Sillah to short stick middie might make some sense since he's about the same size and pretty fast. They will also miss shorstick and sometimes LSM Jimmie Wilkerson. He was an underrated player. Andrew O'Dare showed some potential before getting hurt but at 5-9, he lacks the wingspan of a Goodrich. Will they add a transfer short stick middie? Possibly.

But Nads will likely get the defense straight. He always does. Tyler Canto is back in goal. However, Shane Brennan is also back and he's listed as s redshirt sophomore. They could still have a competition in the fall with Jake Stout, who is a talented sophomore. Canto allowed 10.72 goals per game and had a save percentage of .536%. Not bad but he can better. So can the defense although goals were up this season with the advent of the shotclock. You have to go with the flow and can't win with 8-7 and 7-6 games anymore. You need to score 12-14 goals per game minimum to beat the good teams. 

At face-off, Jack McNallen at least has experience and won 55.1% of his face-offs. But two games came against a horrible Delaware face-off unit and two came against a pretty good Drexel face-off squad. He'll get pushed by Felix Knorr, but I wonder if they don't add at one FOGO here.

That takes us to the offense. I was shocked last season when we added no transfers on offense. We could have used some help at midfield. The second-midfield of Jake McLean, Andrew Beachum, Casey Wasserman, Matt Sovero and Drew Laundry combined for 11 goals and 13 assists. That's probably being liberal with those numbers as McLean began the season on the first midfield before Greg Ey moved up.

I know there are some guys redshirting that they have promise for but for this team to get back to the playoffs, they need athletes up front. This past season, Timmy Monahan and Grant Maloof were really attackman playing midfield. Neither was explosive, though they both had pretty good seasons, Maloof struggled with his shot at 24% shooting but did have 23 goals and 11 assists, while Monahan had 27 goals and 21 assists but shot just 28%. Tough to replace by not impossible. Ey, Wasserman, McLean, Beachum, Laundry and Sovero are back but only Sovero has the talent to score 20+ goals. They need to add two transfers here and then rely on some youngsters. Ey has some explosion but needs to improve his right hand.

Good news is that Luke Fromert is just a sophomore (27g, 10a) and Brody McLean (39g, 6a) will be a junior. McLean needs to clean up some things but he's a pure goal scorer somewhat reminiscent of Kyle Campbell, who had 53 goals in 2001. Now they need to find Sunday's replacement. Tim Montgomery got some run this season but he's not Sunday. Not sure he's starting material at attack. Maybe on midfield.

Let's face it. Last season, we had very little returning on offense. McLean was a bit player, Sunday (17g, 6a) and Sovero (13g, 1a) showed some promise in 2017 but nobody knew Sunday would be that good and Sovero had an injury-plagued 2019 season. 

So players did step up big-time. They'll have to next season without a doubt but adding a few transfers can help the transition. Let's face it, the transfers weren't great in 2018 though Monahan worked out ok and Jean-Luc Chetner did lead the team with 17g, 15 but had a very slow start. 

Turnovers were a big issue in 2019. Getting that number down from 17 per game to around 10 would be nice. Offense will need to be more efficient next season because we won't have as much possession time.

 

 

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Matt great analysis. We will lose two of the the top 2 of the top 3, and 3 of the top 13 selections in the Major League Lacrosse league draft.   Alex Woodall was the first overall selection,  the third selection was Goodrich, and the 13th selection was Sunday.  We will never have that again. That is why advancing this year was so critical. We will almost certainly take a step back.  If you look at the roster for next year as currently constructed I think we would be in a battle to make the CAA playoffs.  Umass returns a very talented group that should win the league 5, Hofstra whom we beat by one goal is very young, Delaware and Drexel will be good teams.

The strength of our team will be our low defense. Bodden, Smith and Silah are all talented. Middies are our top need, defensive middies are also needed. McClean is a very good middie. Not a great scorer but is a really good athlete on the wings on faceoffs and on the defensive end. I thought Beachum had potential but his time diminished. The coaches watch the video and see the players everyday at practice so I trust their judgement. The transfer portal makes it a whole new ballgame in regards to transfers.  As a high school and club coach I have contacted coaches on players behalf after they have communicated with the coach from whom they were playing for that they are transferring. The transfer portal opens the bidding to all the D1 schools. It is going to make things more difficult. 

Something to look at is a change in recruiting. This year we had 32 players on the roster from Maryland, the most of any team in the tournament. For the 2020-21 campaigns 17 of the 21 recruits are from out of state. https://www.insidelacrosse.com/team/commits/towson/19  I have no problems with that if it keeps us as an elite team.  I can tell you from watching club and having assisted a team that has traveled south during our spring break to play teams in Georgia and Florida the sport has exploded in non-traditional areas. I know that having the Under Armour games on campus and the TU camps and tournaments have attracted players to TU's  from throughout the country.  I also think the Final Four two years ago helped in national exposure.  

I have seen three of the commits from the state of Maryland. Evan Long is a diminutive yet fiery goalie from McDonogh has really quick hands, is aggressive and quick. Andrew Milani is a very quick and again small attack from St. Paul's. He can finish.  Josh Webber class of 2020 is a very fast yet small middie. He might be the fastest middie on a top 5 in the country Calvert Hall team.  I know Jonathen Bender from Bullis had four goals vs Loyola but i have not seen him play. Logan Zimnoch was a very talented middie in high school at St. Paul's that was a freshman this year.

There is not doubt that we need a few impact transfers. I hear associate head coach Giglardi could be involved with the Fairfield job. The head coach of Sacred Heat who is a Fairfield alum is also involved with that job. 

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Not a very good grade for that recruiting class from Inside Lacrosse but who knows. We are used to getting so few blue chip recruits. The good thing is that the top grades from IL went to our upcoming midfielders, which is our biggest need. 

So I see that Bender is only 5-9 but plays WR in football so must be a good athlete.

I mentioned Jordan Hayes several times as a big-time need. He's 6-2, 190 but my guess is that Nads moves him to DM. 

Reece Potter from Michigan appears to be another outstanding athlete. 

https://www.livingstondaily.com/story/sports/high-school/football/2018/08/17/livingston-countys-top-football-players-5-hartlands-reece-potter/1009301002/

Guessing Zimnoch (5-11, 170) was one of the who redshirted this season along with Josh James (5-11, 153) from Colorado.

Brandon Hund (6-3) has some size from New Jersey as does Patrick Anderson (6-4, 200) from Louisville of all places.

 

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We have to remember that the 2019 commits were still recruited under the old recruiting rules where the blue bloods like Hopkins, Notre Dame, Carolina, Duke, Maryland had their recruiting class finished in the fall of the high school player's freshman year. I had a player on my club team commit to their college in the summer before they entered 9th grade. We are just not going to get any of those kids. The 2020 class will be the first class under the  new rules of no contact under September 1st of the athletes junior year. Some of the 2020's committed before this rule took place.  There were only a handful of 2021's that committed in middle school before the rule took place. 

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Scoll to the 4:05 mark and you will hear legendary Boys' Latin coach give his assessment of Andrew Milani as he is featured in a players to watch segment. He is a big pickup for the Tigers

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47 minutes ago, sr16 said:

Assuming they adhere to the same sit one year requirement?

No they can play right away 

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Ubriaco originally committed to Hopkins. Hi father is head coach at Loyola High School. Both his father and mother played lacrosse at then Loyola College. He got some playing time this year I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up at Loyola. 

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