College Crosse Prospectus: Saturday’s Scrimmages; Rush Hulk Update

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, College Crosse Nation!! Thanks for making us a part of your day! Here are your links for January 27, 2018.

What You Missed

Check out our College Crosse Fantasy teams.

University of Montana goes south of the border to teach lacrosse in Mexico.

Lacrosse The Nation

There’s five days until the first college lacrosse game of the regular season, BUT there are some unofficial games today too! Here’s a list of what we know:

• Hobart vs. Bucknell - 10 AM
• Ohio State vs. Duke - 10 AM
• Michigan vs. Fairfield - 10 AM
• Bellarmine vs. Notre Dame - 11 AM
• Villanova vs. Stony Brook - 11 AM
• Johns Hopkins vs. High Point - 11:15 AM
• Hobart vs. Towson (at Bucknell) - Noon
• North Carolina vs. Loyola - Noon
• Navy vs. Richmond - Noon
• Michigan vs. Boston University (at Fairfield) - 12:30 PM
• Georgetown vs. Maryland - 1 PM
• Army West Point vs. Penn State - 1 PM
• UMBC vs. Rutgers - 1 PM
• Towson vs. Bucknell - 2 PM
• Boston University vs. Fairfield - 2 PM
• Christopher Newport (D3) vs. Richmond - 2:30 PM

Tomorrow, Hofstra, Syracuse, and Le Moyne will participate in their annual scrimmages beginning at 10 AM, and Notre Dame will welcome Air Force.

There was one scrimmage last night between Jacksonville and Division II’s Tampa. The Spartans beat the Dolphins, 16-14, in five quarters (Tampa led 12-11 after four):

One notable tidbit I found was Jacksonville’s goalie, Hunter Sells.

That name sound familiar? He was 15th ranked freshman and second best freshman goalie by Inside Lacrosse for the Class of 2015 and first went to Johns Hopkins. That didn’t go well for him and transferred to Bucknell, where he was not listed on their roster. This is his third stop in as many years and is listed as a junior on JU’s website.

The Bucknell Bison will have a new volunteer assistant coach for their scrimmages today in David Fraboni:

Fraboni spent the past four seasons as an assistant coach at the Coast Guard Academy (DII). There, he executed and planned offensive strategies, coordinated recruiting and organized and analyzed game and practice film.

”We are excited to add Dave to our staff,” [Frank] Fedorjaka said. “He is a very hard worker and student of the game. He brings a steady, patient approach to his coaching style.”

Before joining the Bears, Fraboni spent one season as an assistant coach at Saint Michael’s College (DII). During his time with the Purple Knights, he coordinated face-off and wing strategies.

A four-year member of the powerhouse Springfield lacrosse team, Fraboni appeared in 21 games at midfield. During his career, the Pride won the Pilgrim League tournament and qualified for the NCAA Division III tournament each year.

Me when I see lacrosse creeping back into my life:

Three captains will lead the UMass Minutemen for the 2018 season:

University of Massachusetts men’s lacrosse head coach Greg Cannella announced the three team captains for the 2018 season on Friday, including seniors Jake Lisauskas and Shane Rinkus and junior Isaac Paparo. The tri-captain trio will serve as player-leaders for the team throughout the spring campaign, Cannella’s 24th at the helm of the program.

”I’m proud to say Shane (Rinkus), Jake (Lisauskas) and Isaac (Paparo) have demonstrated solid leadership over their time here at UMass,” Cannella said. “They will continue to lead the ‘UMass Way’ and encourage the other seniors, juniors and sophomores to join them in guiding this team.”

Check out an update about Buckeye practices from some of the guys!

The Richmond Spiders have some rebuilding to do, pens John O’Connor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

“We graduated a lot from the defensive end of the field and just based off returners, there’s more experience currently on the offensive end,” said [Dan] Chemotti, whose program comes off a 12-4 season, 6-1 in the Southern Conference. “We like the guys who are filling in the gaps, and now it’s just a matter of getting them the experience.”

Returning in addition to the productive scorers from last year is Mitch Goldberg, a redshirt senior who missed last season with a knee injury. Goldberg, 6-foot-5, 215 pounds, from Damascus, Md., was the program’s offensive leader for multiple years before his injury.

“Not playing for a year and a half, certainly there’s some rust to knock off,” Chemotti said of Goldberg. “But Mitch is a true competitor, and he’s preparing himself for the full season every day.”

Denver’s new helmets are nice, and their facemasks are taking a page from the women’s goggles with the matte black inside:

All Delaware Blue Hen home games for men’s and women’s lacrosse will be streamed for free on LSN, which is good for lax fans that don’t want to pay a monthly or yearly fee!

More college previews:

• Florida Gators - Women (US Lacrosse Magazine)
• Johns Hopkins Blue Jays (Inside Lacrosse)
• Loyola Greyhounds (Inside Lacrosse)
• Notre Dame Fighting Irish (US Lacrosse Magazine)

Three games on the NLL docket tonight.

• New England Black Wolves vs. Toronto Rock - 7 PM (Twitter Game of the Week)
• Saskatchewan Rush vs. Calgary Roughnecks - 9 PM
• Georgia Swarm vs. Vancouver Stealth - 10 PM

Back to the Rush-Roughnecks game for a second. As you may have read, the Roughnecks originally banned the Rush’s unofficial mascot, Rush Hulk (aka Kelvin Ooms), for the game. Ooms could go to the game as a fan, but not a mascot.

But the Roughnecks are now allowing him to come to the game in his costume, but can’t act as an official, or in this case an unofficial, mascot. More from The Canadian Press:

“Company policy (is) that mascots of opposition teams are not allowed in the building,” said team vice-president Mike Moore. “We have our own mascots that are part of our entertainment and part of what we do.

”There’s always a safety and security issue when you’ve got opposing fans and opposing mascots, and we want to protect all fans.”

Moore said Ooms can wear his Hulk costume as long as he doesn’t obstruct the view of other fans or behave like a mascot.

”When he came to us, he was going to have a handler, he needed a dressing room to dress in and he needed other things for his uniform and his act,” said Moore. “That’s just not something we allow.”

But what is the difference between a fan and a mascot?

”If he’s got a drum, and he’s going up and down the aisle and banging, getting 250 people going in their seats, that’s a mascot,” said Moore. “Fans can stand up and cheer and have fun with the group around them, absolutely.

”But we all know what a mascot looks like — this looks like a mascot, sounds like a mascot, and all of the requests we’ve had from him would appear that he’s a mascot.”

That’s not all. Not at all. Yesterday, the team announced they’d wear a special patch to stand by Rush Hulk:

But those plans changed late last night:

And guess who may have been involved in the change? You guessed it, the Calgary Roughnecks (and the NLL)!

Another bad look for pro lacrosse. I rip on the MLL a ton for what they do, but this is also really ridiculous. This guy was allowed in last year and probably before then, and now he wasn’t before that changed? This is a lesson in Bad PR 101.

Philly Jawns

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz, the starting quarterback, revealed he also torn his LCL. But he believes he’ll be ready by Week 1.

World News

It’s not a good day for Michigan State. A new report shows they didn’t properly handle sexual assault cases for multiple years.

Video of the Day

Check out the new trailer for HBO’s Andre the Giant documentary:

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

Twitter: @College_Crosse

iTunes: College Crossecast

Facebook: College Crosse

Instagram: @College_Crosse

Managing Editors: Safe Fekadu, Chris Jastrzembski, Ryan McDonnell