CNU Captains Lacrosse

I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who has followed me on here these past few months and to let you know that my irresistible procrastination from studying for exams has led to this post, my quickest successive post in the short history of this blog. I’d also like to start off by giving a shout out to my teammate, Matt Miller, and his awesome mother whose praise I thankfully earned when she became a reader. Matt is an excellent goalie, an unparalleled dancer and a stand-up guy who will be serving our nation in the armed forces after college.

After only a few days back from Arkansas, we hosted the 20^th ranked team in the nation, Hampden-Sydney College. HSC is historically one of the best teams in Division III lacrosse, so needless to say we were prepared for a tough contest. We struck first, scoring the opening goal of the game, and battled closely with the visitors, trailing only 5-7 in the 2^nd quarter. At the end of the day, we fell by the score of 16-8. Despite the final score, however, our team played surprisingly well with such an experienced and talented squad considering, conversely, our youth and inexperience. I believe that if we continue to recruit hard-working athletes and dedicate ourselves to getting better every day, we can truly challenge teams of this caliber in the next few seasons. Andy had another stellar game in the cage, posting 18 saves, while AJ Brown consistently made plays on defense and Zach Hill led our offense with two goals and two assists. I won 12 of 18 face-offs and helped our team in a nearly perfect clearing effort.

Last night we played our last home game of this 2010 season against Virginia Wesleyan. It was a senior night for us and a great night for lacrosse with good weather, a big crowd and an exciting game. Before the game started we honored our four seniors, Ray Fitzgerald, Ryan Schray, Danny Huston and Tripp Baldwin, the only players to play for all four years at CNU (the program began their freshman year, 2007). I will miss the heck out of these four guys, but it was great to be able to give them a round of applause and recognize them in front of the team and the crowd before the game. Once the game started, it was non-stop action from beginning to end. Britt scored twice and John scored once in the first quarter to give us an early 3-0 lead, and our defense played one of its best games all season. We lead 4-3 heading into the fourth quarter, but Virginia Wesleyan managed to score two and take their first lead of the game at 5-4. Shortly thereafter, Zach Hill tied the game for us on a man-up opportunity. Despite having possession and a chance for a game-winner, the Marlins managed to take the ball from our offense and finish a transition opportunity at the other end to take the lead for good. We lost another close one with a final score of 7-5. This loss, like some of our other close ones this season, was tough to swallow, but again proved that we have the ability to compete with some really strong teams. Andy played his best game of the season, saving 19 shots and becoming CNU’s all-time leader in saves. Danny played excellent at the defensive end in his first start of the season, and Ray led our team with his intense play between the lines.

Now we’re about to start exam week and our last week of practice leading up to our final game on Saturday at St. Mary’s. I’m not looking forward to ending what has been an amazing season surrounded by a great group of people, but I also can’t wait for a summer full of relaxing with family and friends, traveling Europe, coaching lacrosse and preparing for my next season as a CNU lacrosse player.

Sunday we returned from a long but successful trip to "The Natural State," Arkansas. It was a week filled with airports, hotels, bus rides and even a little bit of lacrosse. While I can say with certainty that I'd like to never return to the farm-covered flatland of Arkansas, I had a great time away from school with my teammates. Tuesday night we drove to Richmond, VA for our 6 am flight the next day to Little Rock (by way of Atlanta). Wednesday we practiced at Hendrix College and ate in their dining hall (which, I'm disappointed to admit, is superior to ours). Thursday we suited up and took the field at Hendrix against a tough squad from Fontbonne University in St. Louis. We exploded out of the gate for perhaps our best first half of lacrosse all season and jumped out to a 7-1 lead at the break. We lost momentum in the second half and the guys from Fontbonne never gave up, climbing back within reach before we ended the game with an 8-6 victory. Despite our second half drop off, we were happy to notch another win against a quality team, and we were especially excited to give Coach Boward his first victory as head coach. Defenseman Brad Picciolo got the game ball for his aggressive and disciplined play, our goalie Andy had another great game in the cage, and I took every face-off of the game, winning out at 71%. The day after our first victory, we took a tour of the Clinton Library and explored the Little Rock River Walk, where I ate the spiciest sushi of my life. That night we practiced again at Hendrix, ate on campus and had a great time interacting with the student section as we watched Hendrix play Fontbonne.

Saturday we faced off against Hendrix on their home field and experienced the opposite of what happened to us last game. A sluggish first half left us up only 7-4 at the break, but some great play in the second half left us with a 12-5 victory in the end. Freshman attackman Britt Hoover, our leading scorer, came through with four goals while our senior captain, Ray Fitzgerald, added two of his own. With two of our starting offensive players on the sideline with injuries, even senior defenseman Danny Huston came up with a goal on the night.

After a tough loss (11-9) to Swarthmore College last week, we stand at 7-6 with three games left in the season. Wednesday we host one of our toughest opponents of the year, Hampden-Sydney college. Saturday we’ll play our last home game of the year against Virginia Wesleyan, and we close out the season on May 1^st at St. Mary’s college. It’s still hard to believe that my freshman year of college is almost over and that I will be back in Charlotte in less than two weeks, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited for summer. But before I can kick back and relax at home with family and friends, I’ll be bearing down on my last two weeks of school work and lacrosse.

We’re coming into the home stretch of our season with only four short weeks left and it’s crazy to think how quickly my freshman year of college has passed. When Rob Horrigan first asked me to keep this blog (in December), I was excited to be able to record my thoughts from my first collegiate season for my own enjoyment as well as the enjoyment of others—It’s hard to believe that the end is already in sight. With that said, we have four weeks of lacrosse left to play and the climate of CNU lacrosse is in an overwhelmingly positive state. Coach Boward has inspired us to work harder and play harder than we ever have before, but at the same time we are having a heck of a good time doing it. It has become an awesome experience to play for him and to play alongside teammates who are warriors on the field and stand-up guys off the field.

Wednesday we hosted Randolph-Macon for an afternoon contest that saw us jump out to a 2-0 lead in the first quarter and battle with a seasoned squad ‘til the final whistle. The Yellow Jackets overtook us in the end by a score of 15-8. It was a hard-fought game the whole way through, and a few of our guys played outstandingly. Ari came up with 16 face-off wins while Andy made 16 saves and Kevin Righi scored three. After two days of practice, we suited up at Captains’ Field once again to play the visiting Greensboro Pride. It was an amazing day for lacrosse with great weather, a big crowd and an exciting game. It was a back-and-forth battle all game as we once again started fast and took a 2-0 lead, only to fall behind 6-3 before storming back and taking a 7-6 lead going into halftime. The second half went by similarly, but Greensboro struck last with 7 seconds remaining in the game to take a final 12-11 lead. This loss stung quite a bit because we could’ve had them, but that does not discount the fact that we played with more heart and intensity than we have all year, and played our best lacrosse so far this season. Despite losing three straight, there has been significant visible improvement in our level of play from Lynchburg, to Randolph-Macon, to Greensboro. And we don’t expect anything less than more improvement as we prepare for Swarthmore on Saturday. Against Greensboro, Kyle Pasta had his best game of the year with two goals and two assists, while our leader Ray Fitzgerald exploded for three goals. On my part, I was fortunate enough to win 7 of 9 face-offs for 77% and play on the defensive midfield all game. It was also fun to play a Greensboro squad that included several North Carolina kids. Their best player was Nick Patrone from Apex, their face-off man was from Grimsley, their goalie from Canon School, another starting middie from SE Guilford, and my former Team Charlotte teammate Billy Blakely from Hopewell/North Meck. Earlier in the week I also played against former Providence Day athletes JR Sander and Michael Chernega for Randolph-Macon. While I’m on the subject, I’ll point out that Mary Washington’s best player earlier in the season was Mark Bowler from Cary, NC. Who says North Carolina lacrosse doesn’t stack up?

Yesterday I enjoyed a great Easter service at First Baptist Newport News Church, then spent the day at the beach with some friends, including CNU men’s lacrosse players Chase Walton and Andy Macgregor. For any of you guys in high school thinking about playing DIII lacrosse, I can tell you that CNU’s proximity to the beach is definitely a perk. Anybody is more than welcome to spend a weekend with me and check it out.

Today we’ll have team meetings and review film from the game, and then the rest of the week we will hit the practice field hard as we prepare for a tough match-up against Swarthmore. Hopefully we can grab a win before the big trip out to Arkansas the following week. Coach Boward had a few signs made and put up in the locker room this past week, and one of them reads “Smile! You are having the time of your life.” It’s a little corny but it is a great reminder that we are blessed to be able to play the sport we love as college athletes and that we should remember to enjoy every minute of it. I won’t argue with it—I am having the time of my life.

It finally feels like Spring! The sun is starting to show itself and the time to rock shorts and flip flops outside is upon us. Things at CNU have been going well; classes have been great and the team is looking stronger every day. Since my last post we have been through some ups and downs on the field; we lost a game that we all wish we could have back at the University of Mary Washington, but then proceeded to win three straight at home against Randolph College, Vassar College (in double overtime) and Washington and Jefferson College. Unfortunately I missed the Randolph and Vassar games with a back injury, but I returned in time for the victory against W & J.

Yesterday, we took the three hour bus ride up to Lynchburg College (the 14th ranked team in the country) for our toughest test of the year. As if playing one of the best teams in the nation on their home turf wasn’t enough adversity for us, we made the trip with four players (a starting attackman, starting midfielder, 2nd line midfielder and a reserve d-middie) hurt and unable to play. We had only five offensive midfielders healthy (one of which, a senior, was hurt for most of the second half). We also learned, less than 24 hours before game time, that we would be making the trip without our Head Coach. Needless to say, the odds were stacked quite high against us and we were decisively defeated. Despite the loss and the adverse circumstances, our guys played exceptionally hard from the first whistle to the last and sincerely enjoyed squaring off against an elite team and this is due in large part to the outstanding leadership of our assistant coach, Coach Boward. On my part, I played the whole game at d-middie and won 11 of 15 face-offs (73%). I’m very thankful that I had the rare opportunity to play and excel against one of the best teams in the country as a freshman and I am focusing on making the most of those chances for the rest of the season and not taking them for granted.

We don’t have much time to dwell on the loss to Lynchburg as we have two critical home games coming up this week against tough opponents in Randolph-Macon (Wednesday night) and Greensboro College (Saturday afternoon). Fortunately, we should be getting most of our injured players back on the field this week as we look forward to an exciting second half of the season. It’s crazy to think that summer is nearly a month away (exams end for us April 30th and our last game is May 1st) and that my freshman year of college will soon be over. I have a lot of things to look forward to this summer, but for now I’m going to focus on finishing my classes out strong, getting better every day on the lacrosse field and enjoying the rest of my rookie season (and hopefully updating this blog a lot more often!).

Good luck to everyone in the thick of their seasons back in North Carolina. Word on the street is that the Turn & Burn Middle School team is one of the best squads in town this year. I’d also like to congratulate my former PHS co-captains on their accomplishments so far this year—Tucker Hull is still terrorizing defenses for the Naval Academy Prep School and Pete Wesselman is the third goalie behind two upperclassmen for the #1 ranked Stevenson Mustangs. These guys were playing their middle school ball in Charlotte not too long ago as well, so any young guys with hopes of playing in college one day—keep it up, you’re on the right track. Be good this week and, as always, comments are welcomed and appreciated.

What’s up, Turn and Burn? It’s been a while since my last blog and now we are all fully underway into the 2010 lacrosse season. After our opening win against Hood, we traveled to Marymount last weekend to face the Saints on a freezing night in Northern Virginia. The first half was a close contest as we matched up against a veteran Marymount squad, but a few fatal errors gave our opponents the momentum and we could not keep up down the stretch. By the end of the night we had fallen 17-5. It was a tough loss and the youth of this team showed but, as with all our games, we gained valuable experience and understanding of the level of play that we need to be on.

After a couple days of practice, we took the five hour bus ride down to the great state of North Carolina on Tuesday. As a strange coincidence, another DIII lacrosse team, St. John’s Fisher College from my birthplace, Rochester, NY, was staying in the same hotel as us Tuesday night in Greensboro. Wednesday, we took the field at Guilford College against the Quakers for our third game of the season. Just as in the Hood game, we jumped out to a 4-0 lead and never trailed the entire game. After a hard fought sixty minutes, we finished the day with a 14-10 victory to put us at 2-1. On my part, I got my first collegiate start at the face-off X and won a solid 63% on 24 face-offs. It was awesome to start as a freshman and play in my home state in front of my entire family. After the game I spent a few minutes catching up with my parents and my brothers before hopping back on the bus to head back to CNU. The long bus rides there and back were made more enjoyable by a steady stream of jokes between teammates and an excellent selection of movies. All told, we watched Law Abiding Citizen, The Patriot, Team America and Old School while on the road.

The past few days on campus have been spent practicing hard in preparation for tomorrow’s game at Mary Washington. UMW is a solid team with several veteran playmakers that will provide great challenges for our young team. We know that it will take an all-out effort to beat them, but we are confident that we can step up our game and come away with another “W.” After our game, Spring Break will come to a close for us and the rest of CNU’s student population will return to campus—it will be nice to bring some life back to school after what has been a fairly uneventful week.

I hope everyone is having a good beginning to the Spring and I’d like to congratulate the defending State Champion Providence Panthers on winning their season opening game at Western Guilford on Thursday. I can’t wait to return to Charlotte at the tail end of lacrosse season to catch some good old Southern lax. Be good everyone, hopefully that warm weather isn’t too far off!

Today I am enjoying the rare but amazing phenomenon known as “a day off.” We have no practice today (we practiced Sunday, so today serves as our off day instead) and one of my two classes today is cancelled. I’m looking forward to going to Leadership 220 for 50 minutes and then kicking back the rest of the day, studying a bit and resting my body. Tomorrow we’ll hit the field again as we prepare for our second game of the season, a road contest at Marymount on Saturday.

Saturday we donned our game jerseys in our season opener against Hood College and lead the entire game to a 14-8 final. We started the game fast with a 4-0 lead and held off repeated attempts by the Blazers to come back. Offensively, our scoring was widely distributed between several players and we were able to generate several long possessions to keep the momentum on our side. On defense, we let up more goals in transition than we’d like, but we certainly improved over our performance last weekend in the scrimmages. Our goalie, Andy, played well in cage in his first college game and my face-off partner-in-crime, Ari, dominated at the X, winning 20 of 25 face-offs. I played on the first defensive midfield all game and saw a lot of time against Hood’s offense; it was great to finally play a real game for the first time since the State Championship at Duke last May. Overall, it was a solid team effort that carried us to our first win and showed a lot of improvement from a week ago. In general, we felt that we should have beaten Hood by a greater margin, but each day is a learning experience and after some film study and another week of hard work in practice we will raise our game another notch in time for Marymount. In total, we had thirteen freshmen see the field against Hood and we are confident that this young team has limitless upside.

Off the field, I’m facing the mountain of school work that my professors insist on giving us the week before Spring Break. Once I get through with all the papers and exams, though, I’ll have a whole week off from classes to focus solely on lacrosse. While the rest of the student population at CNU goes home, the Spring sports teams will be staying here on what will be a ghost-town campus for the Break. We will play three games in total over the break, and I’m definitely excited to take the trip to the great Tarheel State for our March 3^rd game against Guilford College. It’s hard to believe that in only a couple months my first college lacrosse season will be over; until then I’m going to do my best to enjoy each moment. As hard as it may be, I’m going to do my best to hold off on talking too much about my summer plans—these are supposed to be the best four years of my life and I want to live in the present, not looking too far ahead.

As a random side note, I received an awesome autographed picture from Chris Harris, starting Safety for the Carolina Panthers, today in the mail. It shows him smashing Kevin Smith’s (Detroit Lions) face in the turf at BoA Stadium. It is officially my new favorite dorm decoration.

Yesterday we played our first competition of the Spring as a team. At 11 we took the field in the snow against the Charlottesville Herd, a post-collegiate team stacked with former plays from college programs such as Syracuse, UVA, Maryland and Colgate. We were physically outmatched in this game and got off to a shaky start to the day, but once we settled down and adjusted to the speed of the game we were able to run with the old guys pretty well. The unofficial final score was a 7-1 loss. After a short ten minute break and reprieve from the snowfall, we headed back out and matched up to play St. Mary’s College, a DIII powerhouse. In our second scrimmage we settled down and were able to play closer to the level of play that we’re capable of. The offense woke up a bit and did a great job possessing the ball, and our midfield play excelled significantly against St. Mary’s. By the end, we lost an 8-5 decision. Despite the final scores, we felt that the day was a positive experience overall. All of the teams played through their entire rosters, and we took advantage of the opportunity to improve at every position and give our young team some much-needed experience. On our active roster we have four seniors, two juniors and two sophomores—all the rest of us are freshmen, and most of our starters will be first-year players. Because of the abundant youth on our team, every chance to suit up against another team is extremely beneficial for us; we visibly improve each day. I’m excited to see how we look by the end of this season, and even next weekend. I think that, despite our lack of experience, we will be a real force to be reckoned with in time.

On my part, I was happy with my first performance of the Spring season. I ran on the first defensive midfield line with two seniors and got a lot of playing time, doing well in team defense overall. In addition to my work on defense, I split face-off duties with two other face-off guys on our team. Our face-off success was around 50% and below expectations for what we think will be a top-notch face-off unit this season, but with two freshmen (myself and Ari Elgort from Charlottesville) taking about three quarters of the draws, we are confident that we will be good in that phase.

After an afternoon of hard work and lacrosse we’ve spent the weekend relaxing and enjoying all the awesome sports on TV—HD on a flat screen with surround sound and a subwoofer in a dorm room ain’t too shabby. The NBA All-Star game, Daytona 500 and the Winter Olympics (alright Apolo Ohno) have kept us entertained the past few days as we look forward to our last week of preparation before our first collegiate game. We’ll practice, lift and study film this week with pure determination in anticipation of that first face-off against Hood College on Saturday. I can’t wait to wear that royal blue for the first time and see what all our hard work has led up to. As for all you high school guys back in Charlotte, good luck starting practice this week—if you’re a senior, give this season everything you’ve got and make it something to remember. These memories will be some of the most important in your life.

I’m amazed that I’m able to type right now, as my fingers are still partially numb from practice this morning. After a 7 am wake up, we practiced for two and a half hours in windy, below-freezing conditions with constant, icy rainfall—without a doubt the most miserable lacrosse experience of my life. Practice yesterday wasn’t much better, as we had to end early after snow had covered the lines on the field and the ball was no longer visible. I find it very easy to imagine my high school coach, Coach Humphrey, saying something along the lines of “Back in the day on Long Island we played lacrosse in four feet of snow and then ate barbed wire for breakfast.” Unfortunately, despite being born in New York, I have become a warm-climate Southern boy and am not used to this kind of weather. It occurs to me, though, that practices like these are what develop character and toughness; when other teams in the region are sitting inside, we are braving the elements and getting better.

Earlier this week, my roommate Teddy suffered a fairly serious head injury during full-field at practice. While clearing, Teddy was hit so hard by another player that his helmet flew off; thirty minutes later he was laying barely conscious in the emergency room. He’s doing fine now and it appears that there won’t be any lasting damage from the hit, but the incident certainly puts into perspective the finiteness of life’s opportunities—at any moment, our lacrosse careers could be ended forever. It looks like it will be a while before Teddy can suit back up, but for now we are all just working hard in preparation for our first competition against another team.

In a week we will take the field in two scrimmages against the post-collegiate team Charlottesville Herd and St. Mary’s college, one of our most important opponents in the regular season. It will be great for us to finally put on that blue and gray and go head-to-head with somebody wearing different colors for once. As any lacrosse player knows, those first couple weeks of the Spring where it is straight practice with no games are quite a grind. We are all itching to see what all our hard work has done for us and stake our claim in Division III as a team to be respected. For everyone in Charlotte following me, you can mark your calendars for Wednesday, March 3^rd—we will be playing Guilford College in Greensboro, and this will be a good chance to come out, see some great college lacrosse and support my fellow NC product, Jack Gibbs (NW Guilford HS) and I. Good luck to everyone starting up practice in the next week or two, and I encourage all readers to register on yardbarker to leave comments on the blog weekly. I’d love to hear from you.

-Greg

After a long week of full-time college lacrosse, I’m enjoying some down time and watching one of the greatest sports movies ever, Friday Night Lights, as I type this. To kick off the season on Monday, the team tested on our 2-mile run on the Freeman Center indoor track (I ran a respectable 12:41) and then tested on our bench press, squat, hang clean, pull ups and dips in the weight room. Tuesday, we donned our pads and hit the turf. Overall, our first week of practice has been tough, but successful (Wednesday we ran another 2-mile before practice. I improved with a 12:33). Most of our time has been devoted to skill work and basic systems, but a constant theme of all-out effort has emerged on our team. No matter the drill or the situation, our players are always giving 100% to compete and get better in practice. This week I have been slowly working my way back into practice, mainly working on stick work, foot work and non-contact drills as my shoulder heals. I should be back to practicing fully sometime next week, and hopefully my shoulder holds up when I’m digging in and scrapping for face-offs.

This morning, we woke up at 7 am to head to the locker room for practice, only to see our campus covered in snow and an e-mail from Coach Swanenburg informing us that all team activities had been cancelled for the day. This was amazing because Newport News receives snow even less often than Charlotte, and because college lacrosse practices are very rarely cancelled. Either way, we will take this opportunity to relax, get our legs fresh again and play Modern Warfare 2 for much of the day.

Here’s a quick look at what my schedule is on an average weekday (this was my Wednesday this past week).

8:15 am Wake-up

9:00 am Treatment in the training room

10:00 am Psychology 201 class

11:00 am Spanish 200 class

12:00 pm Lunch

1:30 pm On the indoor track for 2-mile run

2:00-4 pm Practice

4:00-5 pm Lifting

My nights are always devoted to eating as much as I can and studying. It’s a busy schedule, but fun. For those of you in high school gearing up for the Spring, work hard and enjoy every moment of it; college is a big step up in regards to the commitment of time and effort.

Hey everyone,as you can see we've moved the blog here to Yard Barker. Facebook wasn't quite cutting it, so this will allow us more stability and a lot more cool features. I'm sure it will take me a while to get a good handle on everything that I can do with the blog now, but bear with me in the meantime. Make sure you bookmark this page and check back every weekend. I will see what I can do about transferring the older posts over, but for now I'll start where I left off. Enjoy.

I hope you all had a good week and I hope the weather in Charlotte has been better than the weather in Newport News. This week has been very busy for me as classes are now back in full swing; I'm finding myself in the library grinding out papers almost everyday now. The life of an English major is rough.

On Monday, I reinjured my shoulder playing pick-up football with some of my teammates out on the lacrosse field. In the Fall I sprained the joint capsule in my right shoulder pretty badly taking face-offs, and I somehow re-aggravated the injury while reaching out to defend a pass. It’s pretty embarrassing to have injured myself outside of lacrosse, but I’m confident that I’ll be good to go soon enough. As with most things at CNU, our Sports Medicine is top notch in regards to both the facilities and the athletic trainers. I’ve been going in several mornings before classes to receive treatment from our team’s trainer, Lacey. Generally my treatment consists of ice and electrostimulation, then stretching, and finally a series of flexibility and strengthening exercises. I hate to be hurt going into the start of practice, but I have no doubt that I will be 100% again soon.

Tuesday we had our last team meeting before the season, and we also received our brand new Nike team cleats (which are extremely fresh) as well as our new Cascade Pro 7 Helmets. College lacrosse is difficult, but the gear is definitely sweet. Later Tuesday night, I had the privilege of attending a desert reception at the University President’s house for CNU’s freshmen Canon Scholars—the highest ranking scholarship at CNU. There we had the opportunity to meet with the President and several esteemed professors and other school officials; the main theme of the night was our upcoming study abroad trip to Oxford University in July. Needless to say, I am extremely excited to travel to Europe for the first time and spend two weeks studying with some of my favorite professors and some of my close friends. All signs indicate that it will be an amazing experience.

This weekend is the last we will have before lacrosse season officially starts. (As a random side note, my friends and I bought an absolutely hideous, yet comfortable sofa for Teddy and I’s room for $15 at a thrift store nearby. It was an excellent purchase). Monday we will complete all our running and lifting tests, and then Tuesday we will be practicing until May. I know that we have a long, challenging journey ahead of us, but it will be good to finally start being a full-time lacrosse player once again. It has been a long time since the North Carolina State Championship game in May of last year, so I am happy to get back into it. First scrimmage, against St. Mary’s, is February 13th.