Lax Factor Lacrosse Podcast

We are very close to the return of both Major League Lacrosse and the Premier Lacrosse League. The MLL helps us with our lacrosse jones by kicking off their one week season and playoffs on July 18th with a triple header broadcast between ESPN2 and ESPN+.  The PLL gets rolling the following weekend with all of their games airing their two week season and playoffs between NBC, NBCSN and NBC Sports Gold.

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Jeff Teat will be returning to Cornell for his "super senior" season as was announced by numerous outlets yesterday. He will withdraw from school for the fall semester and will rejoin the team in the spring to qualify.

Matt Rambo and Tom Schreiber are two of the biggest names in the sport right now and huge draws for the PLL. I'm going to talk about about what makes each player special.

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Connor Kirst, Villanova standount will be heading to Rutgers. That's probably the biggest news this week, an all american caliber player is ditching Nova for New Jersey. A scoring threat from outside, and an absolute bully of a player.

Big news for Notre Dame lacrosse with the announcement that they snagged Will York. Big finisher that will play well within the Notre Dame system. The kid had a big 2019 with Bucknell and was off to a big start in 2020 helping lead the Bison to a 5-1 record before the season was canned.

Other transfer news, we saw both Hopkins and Syracuse each bolster their defenses with Hop snagging Ohio State goalie transfer Josh Kirson and a starting caliber long pole from Lafayette.  Syracuse gained two starting caliber defenders from Furman and Utah, so as I keep saying, the rich keep getting richer.

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Duke Lacrosse already landed the top lacrosse player in the land via transfer, Michael Sowers. Now they have nabbed the best goalie in the transfer portal in St Joe's Mike Adler.

The terrible news about Furman shutting down their lacrosse program (baseball as well) broke this week and as a result 30 additional players have entered the transfer portal, including a handful of really solid talent.

Interesting pro lacrosse news in that Michael Kraus got drafted by a PLL team and an MLL team and he chose to sign with the Hammerheads of the MLL in a pretty surprising turn from a fan perspective. He joins other top draft prospect Nick Mellen in signing with an MLL team.

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It's official, we can gamble on lacrosse now with the PLL announcing their partnership with Genius Sports Group. The PLL also had their college draft for 2020 and 14 guys were snatched up from the college ranks with a chance to join the PLL officially.  There is also a bunch of college lacrosse transfer news we can rip through, all in this episode of the LaxFactor Lacrosse Podcast (#102).

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LaxFactor Lacrosse Podcast time (#101) and we have a bunch of transfer news to dig into. First up, Bryan Costabile announced he will be leaving Notre Dame Lacrosse and shall be available for the PLL draft. I think he goes quickly, top-five pick.

Cole Williams has decided to remain at Johns Hopkins for the 2021 season removing his name from the transfer portal. Other Hopkins news, John Grant Jr. was named the Jay's offensive coordinator. Grant Jr. is one of the all time great professional lacrosse players in both indoor (NLL) and outdoor (MLL).

Despite Costabile taking off, Notre Dame picked up two great transfers from Penn in Kyle Gallgaher (face-off) and Kyle Thornton (defense).  Gallagher was one of the most sought after transfers in lacrosse so that's a huge pickup and upgrade for ND at the face-off dot.

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In this 100th episode of the LaxFactor Lacrosse Podcast, we talk about the huge news out of the Premier Lacrosse League...The PLL is going live starting July 25th 2020 and will be playing a 14 game round robin leading into a 6 game playoff and championship. This will run from July 25th through August 9th and it looks like they are trying to take advantage of the lack of the Olympic Games going down.

TD Ierlan got drafted by the Long Island Lizards (MLL) early in the week and then announced days later he's returning to Yale for his super senior year. Not a red-shirt from Yale as he had a year left of school anyway. But teammates Jackson Morrill and Lucas Cotler, both being forced to leave as seniors who graduate this spring chose to head to Denver together.

Question of the week, does it pay to be physically fit as a coach over being out of shape and trying to perform the same job? I'll give you my take in the 100th episode of the LaxFactor Lacrosse Podcast.

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Everyone has heard the news that Mike Sowers is heading to Duke. The biggest name to enter the transfer portal beyond Sowers is Yale's Jackson Morrill. A four-year starter with 220 points over his career, Morrill will be a big get for some lucky team.

Teammate Lucas Cotler also entered the portal and is probably the highest rated midfielder. Kyle Gallagher (Fogo, Penn), Mike Adler (Goalie, St. Josephs) and Jack Rapine (Defense, Hopkins) are all in the portal as well amongst a bunch of other very recognizable names, many out of the Ivy.

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It's not official, but it's kind of official, Michael Sowers has reportedly chosen Duke as his landing spot to play lacrosse in 2021 and it makes a lot of sense.  Sowers as I've said over and over is the best player in college lacrosse right now and Duke is now instantly a legit contender again. Michael Sowers is that good and now every time Duke takes the lacrosse field, they will do so knowing they have the best player on the field no matter who the foe.

Other big news, Johns Hopkins has hired Cornell Head Coach Peter Milliman to be the new boss of the Jays.  Milliman went 28-10 in his 2.3 seasons as the head guy at Cornell, and this is now the second coach in a row that Hopkins has stolen from Cornell, as Petro was at Cornell when he was hired by Hopkins way back in the mid 90's.

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Dave Pietramala and Johns Hopkins have agreed to part ways and Petro is out as the head coach for the Bluejays. A national search for a new head coach is now underway at Hopkins.

Petro went 207-93 with 18 NCAA Tournament appearances between 2002 and 2019.  He won titles in 2005 and 2007.

It's a sad day for all of us lacrosse fans, even those that had been calling for his head the last 4 or 5 seasons. Pietramala wasn't just the best defender to every play the game, he has also been one of the best coaches in the sport, ever. The guy is an absolute legend and I wish him the best of luck with whatever he decides to do next.

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