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College Crosse Prospectus: First Week Of Practices Wrap Up

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Virginia v Cornell Photo by Rich Barnes/Getty Images

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, College Crosse Nation!! Thanks for making us a part of your day! Here are your links for January 13, 2018.

What You Missed

We had schedule previews for NJIT, Hampton, North Carolina, Albany, Hartford, and Manhattan.

Who are the new kids on the street across all of college lacrosse in 2018? 27 new teams are set to begin play this year.

The Syracuse Orange held their media day festivities.

Lacrosse The Nation

Plenty of teams took to the field for the first time this week:

Wow:

Some are getting ready for their first practices:

Virginia starts today!

Head coach Lars Tiffany discusses how to build on a stronger culture in his second year with Damon Dillman of CBS19:

“In lacrosse it’s really about heart and want-it. How bad do you want that ball,” Tiffany added. “We’ve got to get more ground balls and get those extra possessions so we can create the tempo and the transition that we want.”

Tiffany also says he wants to build a more “lacrosse savvy” team this season.

”Guys who have a good feel for the game. That, to us, is a really high priority,” he explained. “So we’re trying to build smarter, more intelligent lacrosse players. So we may spend less time running around smashing into each other on the field, and more time talking through things, working through things.”

The Wahoos return three of their top five scorers from last season, led by ACC freshman of the year Michael Kraus, who led UVA with both 34 goals and 56 points. Kraus and midfielder Dox Aitken (29 goals, 40 points) are part of a group of second-years that Tiffany calls “a fantastic class to build a foundation with.”

Brand new gear!

A few of them had some team bonding activities:

We're back! Getting prepped to escape the room. #THWND

A post shared by SJU Men's Lacrosse (@sjuhawks_mlax) on

On the women’s side, Syracuse is wearing helmets for practices:

From what I’ve heard, they’re only being used in practices for now. Reviews on wearing them are mixed, with many of them not liking the new headgear. Another wrinkle to this is that if a player suffers a concussion, they would have to wear it for the rest of their college career.

Matt Kinnear of Inside Lacrosse discusses another social media incident involving a lacrosse player, this time with US National team gold medalist Alex Aust. Earlier in the week, she posted this note:

A post shared by A L E X A U S T (@alexaust_) on

She also just posted this video today:

A post shared by A L E X A U S T (@alexaust_) on

There’ll be an NCAA convention next week in Indianapolis across all three divisions. One key piece of legislature will impact lacrosse in Division III, and it already exists in Division I:

So if a player has remaining eligibility and wants to pursue another undergrad or graduate degree, they would be able to transfer and play at their new school.

There’s four NLL games today! Rochester hosts New England at 7:30 PM, Buffalo plays host to Vancouver at 7:30 PM, Saskatchewan visits Colorado at 9 PM (Twitter Game of the Week), and Georgia takes on Calgary at 9 PM.

Hopkins has another home game!

Brian Coughlin for IL looks at which Twitter accounts grew from last year. Syracuse remains the king of Twitter.

Andrew Gibson from 1010XL in Jacksonville has another podcast with Jacksonville Dolphins head coach John Galloway:

Orange long stick midfielder Austin Fusco is finally a captain, and he’s one of the best most of his teammates have ever had, pens Lindsay Kramer of Syracuse.com

He’s probably the best leader that I’ve ever been around. He knows when to make the right speech. He knows what to say at the right moments,’’ said attack Stephen Rehfuss.

”It’s very emotional. He just bring intensity to everything he does. He’s one of those guys, he just brings something special to the table. I can’t even really explain,’’ said defender Tyson Bomberry. “You know everything that he’s saying is coming from the bottom of his heart, things that he says he will do for the team. It makes you get the tingling inside. He can give me a speech any day of the week and I’d be ready to go.’’:

Fusco said he’s often felt comfortable speaking up to his teammates on issues of the day. As an official team leader and veteran this season, the volume is likely to only go up.

”It’s not necessarily something that I try and do. I think it’s just, I’m going into a game. I’m a pretty emotional person. So, going to the game I have all these emotions kind of bouncing around in my head and all throughout my body. Sometimes it explodes,’’ Fusco said. “Sometimes guys, they kind of gravitate towards it. If I’m feeling it before a game, and I feel like I want to speak up and I want to say something to the team, I’m going to do it. It’s not like I’m doing anything to try and make myself the focus of the team. It’s just something that’s natural. I’ve kind of always done it.’’

The UMass Lowell River Hawks announced their captains for the 2018 season:

Seniors Cory Highfield (Georgetown, Ont.), John Phillips (Delta, B.C.), Will Puduski (Westford, Mass.) and Sean Tyrrell (Calgary, Alta.) of the UMass Lowell Men’s Lacrosse team were named captains by Head Coach Ed Stephenson for the 2018 season, which was announced on Friday afternoon.

Phillips, Puduski and Tyrrell served last season as tri-captains for the River Hawks.

”All four captains have played vital roles both on and off the field since becoming Division I,” said Stephenson. “This is our first season with a recruited senior class, and each of these captains have been here since day one.”

US Lacrosse Magazine wrote previews on Virginia’s men and Colorado’s women, and also released their Division II men’s and women’s rankings, as well as their Division III men’s and women’s rankings.

Get to know a couple of Robert Morris Colonials freshmen:

This was a squad:

The Hartford Hawks women’s team released their inaugural schedule. You can check out their schedule and roster, along with everyone else across Division I, in our women’s preseason matrix.

Steven Marsh of The Franklin News-Post writes on Ferrum college debuting in the new USA South Athletic Division.

An interesting nugget in The News & Observer’s Luke DeCock’s profile of future Carolina Hurricanes owner Thomas Dundon:

When he’s not fine-tuning his golf swing, a perpetual work in progress despite his ability, bearing the fingerprints of just about every instructor in the top 100, he still plays in the same men’s basketball league where he met Cuban. And long before he started looking at a pro team, he was heavily involved with his kids’ teams, coaching them in several different sports while quietly playing a central role in the growth of lacrosse in the Dallas area.

The Pac-12 shootout is about a month away. UCLA will host the 11th annual event for the eighth time, and 10 of the 12 teams (Colorado and Washington State could not attend) will be there. Full schedule is below:

2018 Pac-12 Shootout Schedule

Saturday, Feb. 17
Oregon State vs. USC, 9:30 a.m.
Oregon vs. Stanford, 10:30 a.m.
California vs. Arizona State, 12 p.m.
Arizona vs. Utah, 1:30 p.m.
Washington vs. UCLA, 2:30 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 18
Arizona State vs. Oregon, 9 a.m.
USC vs. Arizona, 9:30 a.m.
UCLA vs. Oregon State, 11:30 a.m.
Stanford vs. Washington, 12 p.m.
Utah vs. California, 2 p.m.

Rosemont has build a “legacy wall” for their boys lacrosse team, from Alec Hamilton of Rosemont Town Pages:

The concept of the wall is simple; players throw balls against it to practice passing, shooting, fielding the ball, etc.

[Lance] Kuehn said the idea was inspired by similar walls he has seen out east and on social media.

”I thought it was something that we needed in Rosemount,” he explained. “It gives players an opportunity to practice with a teammate or by themselves to get better. With it being close to the RCC, being close to the dome, being close to the high school, it’s in a centralized location and we practice right by there in the spring and summer. So if the guys show up early or come late, it gives them no reason to not be able to practice and a space to call our own.”

Kuehn said he wanted to be able to fit a line (a lacrosse line is three players) so that during practice the odd line out would still be able to practice while waiting their turn. He approached the booster club, alumni and former players to see who would be able to help them build the wall. Through those contacts, shared information and general goodwill, they found someone willing to make a significant donation of time and resources to build the wall at an affordable price.

Philly Jawns

Birds-Falcons. Today at 4:35 PM. NBC.

World News

A former postal carrier admits to burning mail for months. He’s got anger management issues.

Video of the Day

What.

Bonus video: It’s on loop.

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