GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, College Crosse Nation!! Thanks for making us a part of your day! Here are your links for May 19, 2018.

College Crosse News

It’s Elite 8 Weekend! Four Final Four quality games this weekend, you gotta love it! If you are up in Hempstead today make sure you keep an eye out for Ryan, Skyler, & Chris. Ryan & Skyler I believe are going to be watching from the stands, while The Boy Chris is setting up shop in the press box for the game today. If you see any of these young men, please do a dab right in their face and film it, as I will put that video across all of our platforms.

Anyway, I digress. You can find today’s Big Board directly below. 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.

Here’s everything you need to know about the early game between Yale & Loyola, courtesy of The Kid Chris.

HEMPSTEAD REGION (MAY 19): #6 Loyola Greyhounds vs. #3 Yale Bulldogs (Noon, ESPNU)

It all gets started Saturday at noon with what should be a fun battle between two Tewaaraton finalists at attack.
Players to Watch

Pat Spencer, A, Loyola: The junior has incredible vision. There’s a reason why a lot of people compare him to a basketball point guard (because he also played basketball and might play for Loyola next year). Spencer has 58 assists, while the rest of the team combined has 67. He alone has 46.4% of the team’s total assists, which is wild. This year, he was two outstanding finishers at attack and midfield in Kevin Lindley and Jay Drapeau. On this week’s College Crossecast that discussed the men’s tournament, it was mentioned that Spencer now has two Zach Herreweyers in that all they do is score goals. And to think he was a late recruit still blows my mind.

Ben Reeves, A, Yale: Mr. Yale has had a tremendous record-setting career for the Bulldogs. He was the program’s first ever Tewaaraton finalist and shattered Jon Reese’s scoring records. He’s three points shy of 300 in his career. He has a cannon and can turn on the boosters when needed. He also has a good supporting cast of Jackson Morrill, Jack Tigh, Matt Gaudet, and Joey Sessa around him as well to dish the ball when needed.

Check out this great preview of the Denver vs. Albany game also by Chris.

HEMPSTEAD REGION (MAY 19): Denver Pioneers vs. #2 Albany Great Danes (2:30 PM, ESPNU)

The second game in Hempstead features a battle of the ages at the face-off X between senior Trevor Baptiste of Denver and sophomore TD Ierlan of Albany.

Players to Watch

Trevor Baptiste, FOGO, Denver: Step aside, Greg “Beast” Gurenlian (who will be on the ESPNU telecast). “Beast” Baptiste is the newest animal that has taken the college (and in a few weeks the MLL) by storm. One of the greatest to ever do it, Baptiste is looking for his second national championship after winning one his freshman year, when the lacrosse world got to know who he was. He’s never really slowed down and is still crushing other FOGOs. This year alone, he’s only gotten to 50% in the season opener against Air Force. He is also a threat to score off the draw. This could be his toughest matchup yet, but he does have a 55-pound advantage over Ierlan (230 vs. 175).

TD Ierlan, FOGO, Albany: If you want to compare Baptiste to Rocky Balboa, you might as well compare Ierlan to Clubber Lang. Odds are he won’t be predicting any pain because he’s a nice guy, but he’s been delivering pain to nearly everyone he’s faced off against. Except when he took on Conor Mackie of Yale, where he won less than 50% of the draws. Ierlan has a wrestling background and has been known to work endlessly on his craft. Imagine how much work he’s put in to prepare for one of the greats in Baptiste. And similar to Baptiste, he can also take it down the field and put it in the back of the net, or dish it out to one of his attackmen.

Johns Hopkins lacrosse player, Tal Bruno rescues dog from a burning car.

Tal Bruno, a senior at Hopkins, had just had lunch at the THB Bagels shop Thursday, when, moments after walking out the front door, something got his attention.

He was back at the scene Friday, describing what happened. “I was right here and the car was kind of where that silver one is,” said Bruno.

Bruno said he grabbed his cell phone camera and started recording the heavy smoke billowing from the back window of the parked SUV. Then suddenly, he said, a woman appeared. ”She starts screaming, ‘Help! My dog is in here, my dog! Help me.’ And I’m, like, ‘Oh, gosh,’” said Bruno. He jumped into action.

”I get in the back of the car, the doors open, I can’t really see well ‘cause of smoke. I kind of get further in and I see this big dog,” said Bruno. “So, I get out and I go around the other side of the car. He’s kind of pinned in between the back of the driver’s seat and the floor. And I just kind of get in the back and I grab him.

Put everything on the Jays this weekend.

2018 NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Quarterfinals: 10 things to watch for by Skyler Gilbert.

It’s quarterfinals weekend, lacrosse fans! Eight teams — Maryland, North Carolina, James Madison, Boston College, Stony Brook, Florida, Navy and Northwestern — have a shot at making the Final Four at Stony Brook’s LaValle Stadium next weekend.

The four women’s quarterfinal matchups all take place on Saturday at either 12 p.m. or 1 p.m. It’s really nice that the NCAA is making an effort to stagger the games and make lacrosse more accessible to viewers. Wait, it’s not doing that at all.

Anyway, these games are going to be really good and any of the four could go either way and nobody would be shocked.

The whole bracket is here.

Here is a quick schedule for Saturday’s action with all forecasts coming from Accuweather.

Happy anniversary, everyone!!!

Johns*

I did a special Untitled Project podcast earlier this week with former Loyola lacrosse player Aleksei Klincewicz

Welcome to another Untitled Project on the College Crossecast Network. In this episode I interview Aleksei Klincewicz, former Loyola LSM and a fantastic basketball writer. You can find his @HoopsRambler Twitter handle here, where you can get all of his amazing posts like this great long-read about why there’s no doubt that Lebron is coming to Philadelphia.

The Cleveland Cavaliers did their best with what they’d been provided (not really), but at the end of the day being in Cleveland (and all that comes with it in sports) is reason enough to get as far away as humanly possible from that burning tire fire. James owes them nothing. They know it, he knows it. LeBron James has become a global brand with absolutely no thanks to the C L E. If he gives enough of a shit to do so- if all the money and the fame and the rings and the admiration of his hometown are not enough… He can go after Michael Jordan. The greatest. But he can’t do it there.But if not there, where? Well, obviously I don’t know. If you do know, bet your life savings on it. But you don’t know, so all we can do is play the odds, and personally? I bet on what I know (that’s a lie I don’t gamble it gives me anxiety), and I know the City of Philadelphia. So strap on your tinfoil hat and stare at the back of a one dollar bill for 45 minutes, because it’s about to get Kyrie Irving up in this muhhfuhh.

Reh twins relish chance to play in front of family and friends.

The Reh twins are coming home, but they hope to take Albany on the road . . . to a historic destination, the university’s first NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse Final Four.

“It would be awesome to get this program to championship weekend,” said Troy Reh, a long-stick midfielder for the Great Danes, who will face Denver at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in an NCAA Tournament quarterfinal at Hofstra’s Shuart Stadium. Yale faces Loyola at noon in the other game. The winners advance to the national semifinals on Memorial Day weekend in Foxborough, Mass. “But we’ve got to take care of business and keep the same mindset we’ve had all year — do not worry about the expectations people have for us or the outside noise.”

Troy Reh and his brother Justin, an attack, are from Rocky Point, and are senior starters for a team that was ranked No. 1 in the country earlier and has the No. 1 offense and No. 2 defense. They are counting on a partisan crowd as well as their considerable talents to make some new noise.

That is one heck of a headline: Dumping a meathead mentality for lacrosse stardom, DU’s Colton Jackson proves there’s life after football.

Football is king in Colorado. And he ruled. In the beginning, lacrosse was something Jackson did as a side gig. As a running back at Rock Canyon High School in Highlands Ranch, he was named most valuable player of the freshman team.

But, as a sophomore in high school, Jackson quit the game America loves best to specialize in lacrosse. It wasn’t easy.

“I would say football games are better than lacrosse games. There’s just something about being under the lights on a Friday night in high school,” said Jackson, re-living the pain of dumping his first love at age 15. “You really don’t have to think too much in football; it’s more a meathead mentality. But lacrosse practice is by far better than football practice. So being a lacrosse player is a lot better life, day-in and day-out.”

What’s Up, PhilaJersey?

What will sports betting in Atlantic City look like?

ports betting is now legal in New Jersey and, pending approval in Trenton of the legislative framework to regulate and tax the new industry, will soon be available at casinos and racetracks. But what will sports books look like in New Jersey? Monmouth Park Racetrack and its sports book partner, William Hill U.S., have already provided a glimpse of what they will do. The 147-year-old racetrack opened a sports bar in 2013 that will serve as a temporary sports book until the two companies’ reported $5 million, Las Vegas-style facility is complete.

Gaming experts agree Atlantic City casinos will likely incorporate elements of what works in Nevada. Frank Leone, CEO of Ocean Resort Casino, said the property will offer sports betting online and in-house when it opens June 28, pending regulatory and license approval.

“We believe we’re well positioned having been working in anticipation of this outcome,” Leone said. “And we fully intend to offer a best-in-class sports betting experience in a high-energy, highly engaging environment.”

Leone said Ocean Resort is planning a 7,500-square-foot sports book “dead center” on the casino floor. He also said the casino hotel has partnered with the “global sports book leader” but would not confirm what company that is.

World/National News

It’s the royal wedding! (Yes I do have it on as I am writing this post.) Shout out to Harry & Meghan.

Prince Harry has arrived at his wedding and Meghan Markle has started her final journey to the chapel giving the world the first glimpse of the bride’s dress ahead of arguably the most A-list wedding in history. The 36-year-old looked a vision in white and is wearing a diamond-encrusted tiara and veil over her face as she left Cliveden House Hotel in Berkshire for Windsor Castle. Her mother Doria smiled and looked adoringly at her daughter in the back of her wedding car, again supporting her in the absence of her father Thomas Markle. Mother and daughter drove away in a Rolls-Royce Phantom IV, which was built and delivered to the Queen in 1950 and used by Kate Middleton for her trip to Westminster Abbey when she married William seven years ago.

Your GIF/Video for May 19, 2018

Some monsters under the bed aren’t so bad.

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