/cdn.vox-cdn.com/photo_images/7045344/20120520_tjg_se7_101.jpg)
The USILA -- or, as you may know it, "Big Lacrosse" -- announced their Division I All-America teams today. People tend to lose their minds over these things and that kind of brain explosion proves that the Internet was designed, promoted, and exists solely for complaining (and also to check Wikipedia to see if any substantial findings have been made in time travel research). These guys are all good -- really, really good -- and recognition of that is fine enough in my book.
The first-team selections shook out like this:
ATTACK | MIDFIELD | |||
Peter Baum | Colgate | Colin Briggs | Virginia | |
Will Manny | Massachusetts | Rob Rotanz | Duke | |
Steele Stanwick | Virginia | Tom Schreiber | Princeton | |
DEFENSE | FACE OFF | |||
Tucker Durkin | Johns Hopkins | R.G. Keenan | North Carolina | |
Kevin Randall | Notre Dame | |||
Chad Wiedmaier | Princeton | GOALIE | ||
John Kemp | Notre Dame | |||
L-S MIDFIELD | ||||
C.J. Costabile | Duke |
It's really hard to argue with those picks. You could make a decent argument that Brian Megill or Mike Manley should find a place on the first squad, but who do you remove? I'd rather a first-team list have a construction of an actual team than naming four guys to attack, six to defense, and bastardizing the entire thing. That's just me, though.
As for notable other honorees:
- Mike Sawyer, Mark Matthews, Marcus Holman, and Jordan Wolf comprised the second-team attack. That team has deathray superpowers, which goes to show you how balanced the country was this season.
- Jesse Bernhardt pulled out second-team long-stick midfield honors over Scott Ratliff. I don't think that's a huge upset -- Bernhardt was the heart and soul of a maturing Maryland defense this year -- but it's a little surprising.
- Kiel Matisz as only a third-team All-America makes my eyeballs spit water. The fact that he sits behind John Ranagan, who had a decent season but not a spectacular one, kind of shows you that the world still revolves a bit around the blue bloods.
- Tucker Hull, Matt Gibson, Carter Bender, and Robert Church (amongst others) received no heat in the selections. I know there's only so many guys that you can put on the list, but those four guys had great production all season. It would've been nice to see them get a nod, at least, on the honorable mention list.
What do you guys think? Good? No good?