Lax Factor Lacrosse Podcast

We're going to start this episode talking about DII Mercyhurst vs Lemoyne, but after that will dive into Syracuse playing at Virginia which is going to be a huge game this weekend.  But then Notre Dame hosts Georgetown in a battle of two of the best teams in the country across the board both offensively, defensively and in cage.

Maryland is taking on Princeton in a game many think is going to be close, but I personally don't.  Rutgers heading to Maryland to take on Loyola should also be a good one. Navy and High Point?  Sure.  In the end we're going to talk about close to 20 games in this episode and it runs for almost 50 minutes, so enjoy.

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What a great Saturday of lacrosse we got to see. It started off for me watching Duke and Denver. What started out as a close game ended with Duke winning 19-10 and both Brennan O'Neill and Dyson Williams putting up 4 goals and 2 helpers.

The return of the Ivies happened this weekend and the highlight of Saturday was Penn taking on Georgetown. Great game all the way through that saw the Hoyas get an early edge, and despite getting back to within a goal late, Penn was unable to knot things back up and Gtown wins it 10-8.

Hopkins and Loyola played the game of the day. Loyola took a 10-8 lead prior to Hopkins stringing 3 unanswered 4th quarter goals together enroute to the one goal victory. Joey Epstein has continued to play well for Hopkins leading the Jays with 2 goals and 3 assists including the game-tying goal late in the 4th.

The surprise of the day was North Carolina getting waxed by Ohio State by a score of 20-8. Ohio State was greatly helped by Justin Inacio dominating the face-off dot winning 18 of 26 of the draws he took and that provided OSU with the possessions needed to put UNC away over the course of the 3rd quarter. Chris Gray finished the game with 3 goals and 4 assists, but it wasn't nearly enough and he got no help.

Also returning to action, Notre Dame beat up on Detroit Mercy, Cornell put it on Albany, Colgate won a close won over Air Force, Towson surprised early, but Virginia ended up pulling away for the route.

We'll talk about all of these gams and many more, so be sure to watch the full show.

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Week 2 action is upon us and we're going to see a bunch of really sold games. Quick list of what we'll talk about in this weeks preview show...

Syracuse will be hosting Maryland at the Dome and I expect both of these high flying offenses to put some points on the board. Duke is hosting Denver and this should be a very solid game with Duke holding a slight edge due to their unrelenting offensive firepower. We'll see Georgetown take on Ivy foe Penn as the Ivyies return to action. Hopkins and Loyola are going to be the crap out of each other this weekend as well. Lots to talk about as we touch on nearly every game that will be played this weekend.

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In our week one recap show, we're going to talk about a ton of games. To start us off we'll talk about Syracuse's absolute beat down of Holy Cross. Then we'll get into the North Carolina and Richmond contest from Friday that saw Richmond hang tight for the bulk of the game before UNC was able to pull away for the win.

We'll talk about the return of Joey Epstein as he put up 6 goals and a dish in Hopkins big win over Towson.

Jaxson Lamb saved the day and forced overtime for High Point against Colgate with just 19 seconds left, and Asher Nolting stuck the game winner in OT for the Panthers.

Maryland beat up on Loyola proving their offense is just fine with Logan Wisnauskas wearing the coveted #1.

Utah picked up the teams first top 20 win dropping Vermont by a goal thanks to a Josh Rose goal with just 1:28 left to play.

We'll talk about all of the above, and a lot more in this weeks episode, so be sure to watch to the end.

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In this week zero show, we're going to touch on EVERY GAME that was played on Saturday including Duke's Friday night win over Robert Morris, Virginia's big win over Air Force, Johns Hopkins close victory over a very tough Jacksonville squad, Maryland's statement win over High Point and much more.

Action kicked off with Duke beating up pretty good on Robert Morris by a score of 21-12, paced by Brennan O'Neill and his 6 goals.

Maryland got off to a hot start and easily dismantled High Point by a score of 21-13. New #1 Logan Wisnauskas put up 5 goals and 3 assists in the contest and was helped out by grad transfer Keegan Khan (4g, 2a).

Jacksonville scrapped with Hopkins and despite losing the game 11-8 has a lot to work with. Jack Keogh (2g, 3a) and Connor DeSimone (3g, 1a) led Hopkins to victory, but transfer Max Waldbaum looked great for Jacksonville going for 4 goals and a dish in the loss.

Virginia had its hands full early against Air Force going down 3-0 by the end of the 3rd quarter before pouncing on the game from there and winning out 21-11.  Connor Shellenberger put up a quiet 2 goals and 5 assists in the win for the Cavs as they ended up rolling.

But that's not all, if you watch or listen to the show, we'll touch on EVERY GAME FROM SATURDAY.

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Week 1 of college lacrosse is upon us.  This may technically be the half week, Week 0 as they've been calling it, but we'll adjust next week once I see what lacrosse Twitter calls it.

This week, we're going to talk about Duke & Robert Morris, Maryland & High Point, Virginia & Air Force, Hopkins & Jacksonville, Rutgers & LIU and Penn State & Lafayette.

I'll also rip through all of Lax Vegas Lines official lines and make picks, off hip, no prep, so forgive me if I butcher them.

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The first college lacrosse game of 2022 is in the books as we all watched Mercer take down Bellarmine by a score of 9-4 on Saturday in Georgia. ScoreBreak and Chris Jastrzembski did a great job streaming the game and overcome some early server issues so we could all watch the game.

The story of the day, Ashton Wood won 13 of the 15 draws he took which is the biggest factor in Mercer's win. Sean Goldsmith scored the first goal of the game (and the 2022 season) and finished the day with 2 goals. Taylor Dooley went for 2 goals and a dish and Carl Klepper put up a goal and 2 helpers on the day.

Colin Kelley, the Mercer keeper outplayed JC Higginbotham posting 6 saves against 10 shots to Higginbotham's 7 saves vs 9 shots. Kelley made some nice saves early in the game that prevented Bellarmine from taking an early lead and that proved helpful in controlling the flow of the game.

In other news, Owen Hiltz of Syracuse lacrosse fame was reportedly injured and is expected to miss extended time. Looks like a shoulder injury, but nothing has officially been released yet.

We'll also rip through and talk a bit about the full slate of games next weekend.

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College lacrosse is back thanks once again to Bellarmine and Mercer. They will faceoff today at noon in a game that this time around will be officially streamed. We all got to watch it last year on Periscope or Twitter thanks to Cameron Herbert, an injured Bellarmine player that streamed the game from his phone.

Last year Bellarmine won this opening game, but this year could be different as Mercer was without their leading scorer, Sean Goldsmith. Goldsmith gets things done on the offensive side of the ball, but he missed half of last season with an injury. Despite only playing in 5 games, Goldsmith managed to put up 18 goals and 10 assists which is pretty impressive across that stretch.

Mercer also has Ashton Wood at the face-off dot who won 92% of his draws against Bellarmine a season ago over their two games. Oddly, Bellarmine won both of those games.

Bellarmine gets back Kyle Playsted (16g, 13a) as their top returning scorer, and goalie JC Higginbotham will anchor a young and inexperienced defense with top returning long pole Jon Robbins.

We'll keep this simple...Maryland will repeat and will finish 5-0. Rutgers and Ohio State should battle it out to see who finishes second. Hopkins could surprise, rebound and end up taking out either Rutgers or Ohio State and Penn State and Michigan will battle it out for the worst team in the conference. There will be lots of offensive firepower witnessed from all teams involved, but there are too many suspect teams defensively in this conference and that will keep Michigan and Penn State in the bottom of the pack.

Logan Wisnauskas, Daniel Maltz, Kyle Long, Anthony DeMaio, Bubba Fairman, Keegan Khan and Jonathan Donville on offense for Maryland?  Forget about it. And back on defense are Matt Rahill, Brett Makar and John Geppert with McNaney in cage still? Forget about it and never mention it again.  Maryland wins the B1G with a 5-0 record and will take their butts back to the Final 4.

The 2021 college lacrosse season featured some of the highest profile transfers the sport has seen, headlined by Michael Sowers ditching Princeton for Duke. The 2022 season doesn't have any Sowers level transfers to boast of, but that doesn't mean that there aren't some very capable players that will be donning new colors this upcoming season, and I'd like to talk about them.

A guy like Sean Lulley (Penn to Duke, Attack) has somehow snuck under the radar, but make no mistake, Lulley put up BIG numbers in the covid shortened 2020 season. His 30 points over 5 games made him one of the leading scorers in the nation and despite not playing any meaningful lacrosse since that 2020 season, I expect he'll do big things for Duke playing alongside O'Neill and Robertson.

Everyone has known for a while that Will Bowen was ditching UNC for Georgetown in 2022, so this wasn't a surprise.  But what is...Gibson Smith is coming back, so the Hoyas now have two of the top 5 long-poles in the country anchoring their defense. Owen McElroy being back in cage doesn't hurt either considering he was one of the best, if not the best, goalie in the country last season.

My favorite transfer, and one of the biggest surprises was Richie Connell leaving Richmond for Denver. Connell will be asked to pick up some of the slack offensively as Denver graduated some stupid talent on attack last season. Expect Connell to step in and be one of Denver's top two or three leading scorers. There is no way he won't be an impact right away.

There are more that I'll discuss as well, Mitch Bartolo (Penn to Rutgers, A/M), Jonathan Donville (Cornell to Maryland, A/M), Jason Reynolds (Richmond to Notre Dame, D), Kevin Mack (Michigan to Stony Brooke, A), Bobby Gavin (Virginia to Syracuse, G), Caton Johnson (North Carolina to Ohio State, G) and Mustang Sally (Richmond to Loyola, SSDM).

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