College Crosse Elite 8 Game Day: How To Watch, Attachments, & Open Thread For May 20, 2017.

Hello friends. Welcome to Elite 8 Saturday. After 4 months of banter and games we are four games away from the Final Four. What a glorious time to be alive.

Now, I LOVE the Final Four on Memorial Day Weekend. The stakes are high, there’s usually plenty of great drama, and Memorial Day is a top-4 American holiday. (Ed. Note: Lowkey the most underrated holiday in America.)

BUT! The Quarterfinal Round of the NCAA Tournament is pretty awesome as well. You get two day’s worth of Final Four caliber games and the atmosphere at the Elite 8 sites is terrific. (Ed. Note: Look out for our boy Ryan at Hofstra today!!)

Make sure you kick off Elite 8 Saturday properly by watching The College Crosse Game Day live stream starring The Kid Chris over on our Facebook page. Start time is still up in the air, but it should be up and running by 9:30 or 10:00. We’ll make sure to give you a heads up on Twitter before we go live. (Ed. Note: Chris is going LIVE at 9:00.)

The stream will probably be a hotel room special, as Chris is in Wawa Country right now. He and the rest of the Syracuse squad drove down yesterday for their game versus Towson on Sunday.

Below is today’s Big Board. Clicking on the team name will take you to that team’s homepage. Clicking on the Stream cell will take you to the broadcast of that game, while the Live Stats cell will take you to the live stats of that game. Everything is on tv today, so that’s awesome.

Skittles Scale!
(Ed. Note: For entertainment and informational purposes only!! #WeDoNotEndorseGambling!!)

College Crosse Preview.

Duke vs. Ohio State: Duke & Ohio State haven’t played each other since Ohio State’s 16-11 win over Duke in the 1st Round NCAA Tournament back in 2015. The Buckeyes absolutely blitzed Duke in that game and shocked the defending champs in Durham. The game that was not as close as the score would indicate. I have a feeling this one will be a lot closer than the 2015 game, as both teams are playing extremely well right now, and I doubt Ohio State will catch Duke sleeping like they did in 2015.

OSU’s won five out of their last seven games, with their two losses coming to Maryland and Rutgers (in OT) by 2 goals combined. The Buckeyes took care of Loyola last week 7-4 and limited Loyola star Pat Spencer to 1 point the entire game. Ohio State is playing very well right now and has a formidable defense. (Ed. Note: Ohio State’s 6th in the country in Team Defense, while Duke is 5th.)

Not to be outdone, the Blue Devils have won six out of their last seven games, with a one-goal loss to Notre Dame as their only blemish in the last month and a half. Duke absolutely obliterated Johns Hopkins last weekend to win their first 1st Round game since 2014. This might be BOSS Danowski’s best job as a coach, given the fact Duke lost so much talent from last year’s team, and yet he still has this 2017 team on the cusp of a trip to the Final Four.

Notre Dame vs. Denver: Today is the 23rd meeting between the Pioneers and the Fighting Irish, with Notre Dame leading the series 14-8. If you want a #WhitneyInOT game, then you should probably make sure to not miss this one, as five of the last seven meetings between these two squads have gone into at least one overtime session. Moreover, seven of the last eight games between Denver and Notre Dame have been decided by one goal, including this year’s 11-10 thriller in which Denver won on a last second shot in regulation.

Notre Dame soundly beat Marquette 15-9 last week to quell some whispers. Going into the Marquette game, Notre Dame was riding a two-game losing streak and had lost 4 of their previous 7. The Irish were pretty banged up towards the end of regular season and wisely rested some of their stars for the May 6th game vs. Army. It appears that the rest did Notre Dame some good, as they took a Marquette team apart that had only lost to Notre Dame by 1 in their previous match-up on April 11th.

We haven’t heard a lot from the Pioneers this season, despite the fact that Denver’s 12-3 on year. I think their two bad losses to North Carolina and Ohio State in the middle of the season took some air out of this squad. Regardless, aside from their still inexplicable loss to Marquette in the Big East Tournament, Denver’s won 7 of their last 8 games and appears ready to make a real run for the title this year. The Pios took care of Air Force last weekend 17-10 and look loose and ready to go for their game versus the Irish today.

Attachments.

Wonderful story out of Doverdale: How lacrosse is uniting Doverdale youth, community leaders.

Maciarello had the idea of bringing a new sport to the Doverdale playground that he and his family have participated in for several years – lacrosse. “That had a profound effect on this community,” said Maciarello, now a Wicomico County Circuit Court judge, regarding the murder. “I rode in police cars until about 3 a.m., and I remember seeing young men still in the park grieving over that senseless act of violence. As the state’s attorney, I always tried to work as a problem solver and come up with strategies to reduce crime in the area." Maciarello saw a need for youth mentoring throughout the community, and given his background and experience as a leader, the judge believed he knew what was needed to help the kids of Doverdale. A former lacrosse player with two sons who play the sport, Maciarello saw the opportunity as a chance to teach the youth of Doverdale, specifically middle schoolers, a new skill while providing them a safe and secure place to go once school let out. Though basketball dominated the daily activity at the playground, many were quick to give lacrosse – a game several had never played – a chance to change the standard routine of doing the same expected thing day after day.

Here’s a great segment on SC With SVP: Great Hair In Lacrosse.

Here’s the CAA preview of the Syracuse vs. Towson game.

CBS Denver did a segment on today’s Denver vs. Notre Dame game.

Duke’s one game away from their first Final Four since 2014.

Hoping to climb its way back among the elite of NCAA men’s lacrosse, Duke faces an important opportunity Saturday that would allow it to exorcise an old demon. Two years ago, the Blue Devils were the guys the rest of the country chased, having won back-to-back NCAA championships with three titles in a five-year period. That all ended when Ohio State came to Koskinen Stadium and ran the Blue Devils off their home field, posting a 16-11 NCAA tournament first-round win on May 9, 2015. This past Saturday, Duke routed Johns Hopkins 19-6 in Baltimore for the Blue Devils’ first NCAA tournament win since their last national championship in 2014. It set up a quarterfinal round game against, yes, Ohio State on Saturday (noon, ESPNU) at Hofstra University’s Shuart Stadium in Hempsted, New York. The impending game, where the winner will advance to the final four, caused some former Duke players to reach out to the team this week.

Lacrosse equipment made from recycled plastic?

Reduce, reuse, Re-Lax—there’s a new sustainable lacrosse head on the field. Young entrepreneurs Colton Rasmussen and Trent Cavanagh, seniors at C.M. Russell High School, added another accolade to their roster of success with their Re-Lax lacrosse head company. On Thursday, the pair earned top prize at a business plan competition modeled after the television program "Shark Tank", sponsored by D.A. Davidson and the Great Falls Chamber. Six teams, three from CMR and three from Great Falls High, presented their business ideas, models, prototypes and revenue projections to a panel of business sharks.

Games start soon. I’ll see you out there!