College Crosse Prospectus: Another Lacrosse Player To The Patriots

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, College Crosse Nation!! Thanks for making us a part of your day! Here are your links for July 8, 2017.

What You Missed

This week’s check-up on the recent NCAA college graduates.

Former Georgetown Hoyas assistant Justin Ward is going to the Army West Point Black Knights after three seasons in D.C.

Lacrosse The Nation

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick gets another lacrosse player on his staff in former Rutgers Scarlet Knights FOGO and former Maryland Terrapins assistant Chris Mattes:

Chris Mattes (Instagram: @cjmattes65)

He’s the fourth staff member on the Patriots with a lacrosse background. That includes Mike Pellegrino (Johns Hopkins), and three other Belichicks (Stephen - Rutgers, Brian - Trinity, and Bill - Wesleyan).

Congratulations to the Towson Tigers on being named Uniswag’s Lacrosse Uniform of the Year!

College lacrosse news: Terry Foy of Inside Lacrosse reports that former Furman Paladins assistant coach John Haus will join the Penn State Nittany Lions next season. He also reiterated Justin Ward to Army West Point (which we wrote up Thursday evening) and LSN’s Travis Eldridge’s report of Tyler Granelli to the Jacksonville Dolphins.

The Denver Pioneers are always partying in the USA!

棍网球 (gun wang qiu). You now know how to say lacrosse in Chinese. Speaking of Chinese lacrosse, Maguire Padley of The Diplomat (also a manager on the Chinese team) profiles how the Chinese women’s national team will make their international debut, without state backing or public attention.

A Chinese women’s team was established in 2013 and since then has played in a number of international tournaments throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The team that will be competing in the upcoming World Cup is not made up of professionally trained athletes, but rather, a geographically diverse group of university students and young women with full-time jobs. Team China’s organizing committee is composed of both local Chinese and expatriate volunteers, including coaches Morgan Banaszek (American) and Jesse Porter (Canadian).

With scarce financial resources, next to no domestic competition, and little public awareness of the sport in China, the development of the women’s national team has been challenging. Despite China’s history of using its success in international sports as a tool to gain international respect and rid itself of the lingering memory of national humiliation, lacrosse has not been included in China’s state-sponsored sports system. Instead, the sport has been developed entirely at the grassroots level in China.

The lack of government involvement in the sport does come as a surprise to many. However, it was precisely the pursuit of international prestige that prompted China to initiate its Olympic strategy in the mid-1980s. The purpose of the strategy was to maximize the nation’s success in international sports, with winning Olympic gold medals as the highest goal. Consequently, from 1986 on, the government has devoted its human and financial resources to target Olympic sports such as shooting, weightlifting, and diving. Non-Olympic sports, like lacrosse, are generally overlooked. Thus, despite the fact that the Chinese women’s national team will be representing its country at the highest level of international competition for lacrosse, the team has been excluded from government sponsorship.

Nevertheless, owing to its spectacular economic growth over the past 30 years, China is now well positioned to devote financial resources to non-Olympic sports programs without sacrificing its performance in targeted Olympic sports. Just as China has drawn upon the international achievements of its women’s volleyball and women’s soccer teams to earn international prestige in past decades, women’s lacrosse could pave the way for China’s future success in international sports. By ignoring its women’s lacrosse national team, China is missing an incredible opportunity to succeed on the international stage.

Continuing on the world stage, Justin Feil of US Lacrosse Magazine says hosting the FIL Women’s World Cup has helped England revamp their program.

“Since the last World Cup, English Lacrosse has introduced some fundamental changes to the structure of the sport, strengthening the talent development pathway and improving the coach education system,” said Phil Collier, their first male head coach. “The hosting of the women’s World Cup has given added impetus to these changes, and has coincided with a change in culture of the England team.”

England also added an assistant coach from the U.S., former North Carolina player Katelyn Hoffman, and welcomed a mix of experience. They have fostered strong chemistry in training, and played a tougher exhibition schedule.

“I think we be a really dangerous team,” [Megan] Whittle said. “I’m really confident in my teammates and confident in our coaching staff and everyone working with our program. It’s a really exciting time for England.”

The Maryland junior attacker joined the England team in 2016, played in almost a dozen exhibition games with it, made good friends and converted all of them to Terps fans. After Maryland was NCAA runner-up in 2016, she left the next day to join England in Australia for a best-of-three friendlies series that England won. She was thrilled to host when they played in the Team USA Fall Classic. England lost to Australia by a goal, led the U.S. at halftime and beat Canada by a goal.

Former Maryland Terrapin player and current Loyola-MD Greyhounds coach Jen Adams is done playing internationally for Australia, pens The Baltimore Sun’s Katherine Dunn.

Adams, perhaps the best women’s lacrosse player ever, finally knew her playing career had come to an end.

“Had I gotten myself back to a place and been able to say at that moment, ‘I want to be in and all in,’ I could have had the opportunity to go again, but I think it was there that I just realized. That was a real moment for me,” Adams said. “I can’t really explain it, but watching all my friends go through that camp and selection process and being there physically for it, it was kind of what I needed to see and be part of to be like, ‘This is real. You’re actually not going to play.’”

The difficult decision not to stand for selection ended a stellar international playing career that began as a 15-year-old helping Australia win gold at the first under-19 world championships. In the 2005 and 2009 senior World Cups, she scored more points than anyone else and led the Aussies to the 2005 gold medal with four goals and three assists in the 14-7 title-game victory over the United States.

Along the way, Adams detoured to Maryland for four national championships, three National Attacker of the Year honors and the first Tewaaraton Award as a senior in 2001. Her 445 career points still stand as the NCAA Division I record.

KCRA 3 in Sacramento covers the growth of lacrosse in Northern California, which includes plenty of film on games from the guys over at ADVNC Lacrosse.

But the MLL, who’s All-Star Game is tonight at 10 pm EDT (yikes), didn’t have their best day on Twitter:

Noah Sharfman went in on their social media accounts:

You know what they say, if you have a problem, the first step is to admit you have a problem. The MLL has not done that.

Philly Jawns

The Joel Embiid-LaVar Ball feud continues:

World News

Lonzo Ball didn’t have his best game in his Summer League debut. He’s a bust.

Video of the Day

Here’s a new Dude Perfect video:

That’s it for today!! I’ll see you out there!! Make sure you follow us on social media!

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Managing Editors: Safe Fekadu, Chris Jastrzembski, Ryan McDonnell