GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, College Crosse Nation! Thanks for making us a part of your day! Here’s everything you need to know for September 12, 2018.

College Crosse News

Air Force makes a great move and taps Bill Wilson as head coach for the 2019 season.

The Air Force Falcons have tabbed Bill Wilson as their next head coach, the Air Force Academy sent in a press release. The hiring will be official pending the finalization of the government hiring process. Wilson was the team’s interim head coach last season as then-head coach Eric Seremet was suspended due to an investigation that involving hazing, bullying, abusive sexual contact, and drug use with the team. Seremet has since taken a position at Rutgers as their offensive coordinator under Brian Brecht.

Wilson went 5-10 overall and 3-4 in SoCon play as the interim boss, who did not have the likes of Chris Walsch and Grant Gould due to suspensions. Over the summer, a source had mentioned Wilson would probably be staying at the Academy, but possibly still under the interim tag.

Wilson has been an assistant coach at the Academy dating back to 2009, when he came over from Dartmouth after serving as their head coach for six seasons. He finished with a 40-44 record with the Big Green during that span. Wilson also spent time at Cornell, Hofstra, and Princeton.

The shot clock proposal is changing to 80 seconds!

The NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Rules Committee has changed their proposal to have an 80-second shot clock that begins on possession, as first reported by Matt Kinnear of Inside Lacrosse. The reset will also now be at 80-seconds.

Teams will still have 20 seconds to clear the ball to midfield, but will be able to have the remaining amount of time to get a shot on cage. At minimum, teams will have 60 seconds to get a shot on net, but could have more time if teams clear the ball faster than 20 seconds.

Sacred Heart Pioneers head coach and member of the Rules Committee Jon Basti told College Crosse it was a great change and something that should have been done in the beginning.

“It was one of the options that was originally discussed,” Basti said, “but we felt like the 80 seconds would be way too long. And when people started practice a couple weeks ago, the big thing ended up being no visible clearing clock.”

The Kid Chris writes that Merrimack will jump to Division I and will join Northeast Conference starting in the 2019-20 school year.

The Merrimack Warriors have accepted an invitation to join the Northeast Conference in Division I and will become the conference’s 11th member, which was announced earlier today by NEC commissioner Noreen Morris.

Merrimack is currently a member of the Northeast 10 conference in Division II for this upcoming season in all but two sports and will be able to compete for NE10 championships this year. The Warriors men’s and women’s hockey teams are members of Hockey East in Division I and will stay in that conference. The Warriors will start their membership as members of the NEC beginning in the 2019-20 academic year and will be “incorporated as fully as possible into NEC athletic schedules.”

The school will be a full member of the conference prior to the start of the 2023-24 school year. There is a four-year NCAA Division I reclassification period that the school will have to go through and will be able to participate in NEC championships in non-automatic qualifier sports (lacrosse is not one of them).

Loyola, come on down!! You’re #6 in the College Crosse Year in Review.

Season Summary After making it to Championship Weekend in 2016, Loyola got closer to reaching that mark once again in 2018, only to be stopped by eventual national champion Yale after winning the Patriot League championship.

The Greyhounds always have a tough first two games to kick off their season. In the annual showdown with Virginia, it needed double overtime before the Cavaliers took home the always entertaining meeting. But it wouldn’t be the only time the two teams would meet. The following week at home against crosstown rival Johns Hopkins, Loyola pulled away in the second half with a 7-1 run to crush the Blue Jays 12-5. They’d take care of Lafayette, Towson, and Holy Cross in their next three games before getting a chance to host a talented Duke team.

Despite a 3-1 lead after the first quarter, the Blue Devils took control of the game in the second quarter, scoring 10 of 12 goals between the start of the second quarter and the 13:46 mark in the fourth quarter, which included a 7-0 in the middle of that run. But Loyola took out their frustration in a convincing road win over Navy in which Pat Spencer tied a school-record with 12 points (four goals, eight assists) in a single game. But the Greyhounds suffered a small slip-up in an upset loss to Bucknell despite scoring three goals in the final 5:47.

That scrappy, underdog Johns Hopkins comes in at #5 in the 2018 Year in Review.

Season Summary After back-to-back 8-7 seasons, the Blue Jays got their swagger back in 2018 en route to a Big Ten championship. But their season was stopped short of reaching Championship Weekend for the first time since 2015.

The season did get off to a rough start. After taking care of Towson at a rainy Homewood Field, Johns Hopkins got blown out in the second half by Loyola before falling in the fourth quarter to North Carolina at home. It didn’t look like the team changed, but that would change shortly after. A year after getting 18-7’d by Princeton, the Jays took care of business this time around at home with a 16-9 win. And after falling to Syracuse at home in overtime a year ago, Hopkins did the honor of 18-7’ing the Orange inside the Carrier Dome in a huge statement game.

After a win over UMBC and 6-0 fourth quarter in a victory against Delaware, the Jays started out horribly against Virginia at Klöckner and were down 9-2 at the half. But the Blue Jay offense woke up from a deep slumber with a 13-4 offensive explosion in the second half to take the Doyle Smith Cup in a two-goal win. Joel Tinney had a six-point performance, Kyle Marr finished with four goals, and Cole Williams and freshman Connor DeSimone each recorded hat-tricks. Hopkins began Big Ten play on the road against Rutgers and left Piscataway as victors after Marr scored the game-winner with 14 seconds left before defeating Ohio State.

There were many tributes to those who perished in the attacks on NY, DC, & PA on September 11th, many honoring former Boston College lacrosse player Welles Crowther who gave his life 17 years ago.

Former baller Dylan Bowman is now one of the best ultra-marathoners in America.

Then again, what would you expect from someone who entered his first race—a 50-mile ultra—on a whim? The backstory of Bowman is a unique one. As a high school and collegiate lacrosse player, running was a necessary evil of his sport. Though he had ambitions of one day becoming a professional lacrosse player, he never really followed a structured training plan to improve his run fitness. He just went out and exercised, and it was fun.

“But when my lacrosse pursuit fizzled after my collegiate career, I needed something just to stay active and in shape,” says Bowman. “Naturally, my lifelong love of competition led me to sign up for races.” Specifically, the 2009 Leadville Silver Rush 50-miler. At 23 years old and on very little training, Bowman cruised to a 7th place finish in his first-ever running race. “I found that I had some talent for the sport,” Bowman says humbly.

For the third time since 2011, the Gettysburg College women’s lacrosse team was honored by the Borough of Gettysburg with the Eddie Plank Award, recognizing outstanding athletic achievement by members of the community.

Duke’s Joey Manown is hunkering down for Hurricane Florence.

As Hurricane Florence continues to intensify with more than a million people in both Carolinas and Virginia under evacuation orders, one Rhode Island lacrosse player at Duke University plans on hunkering down and riding out the storm. Joey Manown was a standout at LaSalle and is now playing lacrosse at Duke University in North Carolina, right in the path of the monster storm. Manown tells ABC 6 that the talk around campus is everyone’s hoping the storm won’t be as bad as everyone thinks it will be.

Great video by Bellarmine.

What’s Up, PhilaJersey?

Don’t call it a comeback: Bob Dylan, Weezer Among Major Acts Kicking Off Philadelphia’s Renovated Metropolitan Opera House.

More than 100 years after it first opened, a Philadelphia legend is springing back to life.

The Metropolitan Opera House, or the Met, originally built in 1908 and occupying an entire city block near Broad and Poplar streets, is slated to open its renovated doors on Dec. 3 with music icon Bob Dylan playing his 50th show in the Philadelphia region.

Dylan is just one of several major acts already booked at the venue, which boasts a 3,500-person capacity, premium seating, on-site parking and more.

World/National News

Oh boy! Everyone stay safe out there: Florence likely to hover over Carolinas & Virginia for days.

All interests along the coasts of the Southeast and mid-Atlantic are being put on alert for a potential strike from Category 4 Hurricane Florence during the second half of the week.

AccuWeather meteorologists believe that Florence will reach the Carolina or Virginia coasts and pose a serious threat to lives and property late this week.

”There will be extensive damage inflicted by Hurricane Florence due to its predicted path, which is perpendicular to the coast, rather than at an oblique angle. This means the east and southeast winds on the east side of the storm are going to be most effective in driving storm surge flooding as the wind and waves pound the coast. That is one of many factors in why AccuWeather is estimating $30 billion in economic impact and damage from Florence,” AccuWeather Founder and President Dr. Joel N. Myers said.

Your GIF/Video for September 12, 2018

This footage from above Florence is pretty nuts.

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, Across College Lacrosse

Facebook: College Crosse

Instagram: @College_Crosse

Managing Editors: Safe Fekadu, Chris Jastrzembski, Ryan McDonnell