Making Sense: Berkman Enjoying the Ride
by Jac Coyne |
Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff | Coyne
Archive | Twitter
Jim Berkman hates his wife's car.
|
| Salisbury senior middie Mike Von Kamecke wasn't afraid
of driving against Lynchburg (2 assists) in a 14-9 victory, but the
second half against the Hornets made Gulls' coach Jim Berkman think
of his wife's car. © Kevin P. Tucker |
It's a soft-top convertible - a "chick car" in Alpha Male
vernacular - and when the Eastern Shore is looking more like Fargo
than Fruitland, the ride tends to get a bit breezy. Throw in an
annoying reporter bleeding him for quotes on a cell phone Saturday
evening, and there are a lot of other places the Salisbury head
coach would like to be.
Berkman drew the Jenny-mobile for his trip to and from the
University for the Gulls' game against Lynchburg because his wife
(Jennifer) selected the better-insulated of the Berkman family
chariots for the drive down to Christopher Newport, where their
daughter, Keli, played in her first game with the Salisbury women's
team.
So Berkman's car situation in a nutshell: he's not totally happy
about the final outcome, but in the grand scheme of things, it's
not all bad.
As it turns out, his auto issues parallels the Gulls' performance
against the Hornets, in which Salisbury improved to 2-0 with a 14-9
triumph.
Not Totally Happy
"What I didn't like was our first four possessions of the
second half because it would have put the game away," said Berkman.
"We had four unbelievable opportunities to start the second half
and twice we shot the ball high-to-high right into the goalie's
stick that would have broke their back. Then we had a one-on-one
and we did the typical attack - fake high, shoot low - and the
goalie was sitting on his knees.
"We took the ball away again and came down on the fast break and a
long stick came down on the fast break and instead of dumping it
over the head to Matt Cannone, who is a 50-goal scorer for a
one-on-one, he decides to shoot it and it goes wide. Now they come
and stick one and they have a lot of confidence. We didn't make a
whole lot of saves in the second half, which wasn't good
either."
Not All Bad
"I thought we played awfully well in the first half and we were up
11-2 at halftime. We really moved the ball. We played as well on
offense as we could have. We got the ball inside, we got easy
shots, we skipped the ball to the backside. We did a good job
defensively in the first half being patient. We played pretty well
defensively.
"There were a couple of unbelievable goals where there was like six
or seven passes in four seconds that led to a dunk one-on-one with
the goalie. That's what I really liked about the game. That and
Ryan Finch at the [face-off] X. Ryan kind of dominated the X the
entire game and that will be critical to our success this
year."
As with most coaches, Berkman tends to linger on the aspects in
need of improvement, but he's aware that there are mitigating
circumstances to the Gulls' Jekyll-and-Hyde home opener. Like most
of the schools between the North Pole and Charlotte, Salisbury got
absolutely no run outside leading up to its first two games because
of the weather.
It's not a big deal for the northern schools that are not only used
to it, but start a week later. For a quasi-southern school like
Salisbury, it can cause a developmental delay. In the case of the
Hornets' game, it was in the conditioning.
"I think we actually got tired, which is uncharacteristic of any of
my teams," said Berkman. "I think that's because we've been running
20 yards in the gym versus running 70 yards outside. We made a few
mental mistakes as a result of fatigue."
While there are certainly areas of improvement for the Gulls,
Berkman was quick to give credit to Steve Koudelka's charges.
"Lynchburg never gave up and kept coming at us," he said. "They
also got a hot goalie - their goalie made six saves in the third
quarter, which is pretty impressive. And it wasn't like we didn't
have some great opportunities."
As much as the Lynchburg win wasn't the perfect situation for
Berkman and his troops, he knows it's still a great win. In
addition, Saturday's shortcomings weren't from a lack of
effort.
"We were trying hard," he said. "I like this team, and I think they
are going to get better."
That's a lot more than Berkman can say for his wife's car.
Weekend Game Balls
Mike Winters,
Attack, Salisbury
I asked Coach Berkman who he thought would get his mythical
game ball and he tabbed the senior attackman. "He had five goals
and they were spectacular goals, too," said the coach. "And he rode
real hard."
Dean Hall, Goalie,
Michigan State
The Spartans had a productive road trip to Georgia, posting
a 2-1 record. The swing game came against Boston College and Hall
was clutch. With Sparty trailing by three heading into the second
half, Hall helped the State defense allow just one goal in the
final 30 minutes by making the majority of his 20 saves on the day.
Michigan State, which was ranked No. 18 in the LM preseason poll,
should move up thanks to their goalie, who also held Georgia to
four goals in an 18-4 win and stifled No. 6 Florida State in an 8-5
loss.
Geoff Hebert, Goalie,
Stevenson
When we spoke on
Friday, Paul Cantabene said his defense was far more advanced
in its development than at this point last year, and it certainly
showed on Sunday. The poles in front of Hebert deserve recognition,
as well, but it's the goalie who gets the glory when things go well
on the backline. Hebert made nine saves in 52 minutes of action to
pick up the win.
Dave Decker, Goalie,
Stevens
Muhlenberg gave the Ducks all they could handle on Sunday,
but Stevens managed to pull out the 8-7 victory due almost entirely
to the play of Decker. The junior made 25 saves, including one on
the doorstep with 12 seconds left to preserve the win. "Dave did a
great job for us today," said Stevens coach Gene Peluso, who picked
up his first win with the Ducks. "Dave is a true leader. He let a
few soft ones in early, but he stepped up when we needed him. Great
job by Muhlenberg at the X and controlling tempo; Dave was the
equalizer."
What's On Tap
Messiah (0-0) at
No. 3 Gettysburg (0-0), 3:30 p.m., Wednesday
The national runner-ups, Gettysburg, see what kind of horses
it has in the barn in the season opener against the Falcons. The
Bullets are favorites, but Messiah is a team not to be trifled
with. This should give us a good feel what kind of work Hank
Janczyk has ahead of him.
FDU-Florham (0-0) at No.
12 Cabrini (0-0), 3:30 p.m., Wednedsay
A pair of NCAA tournament teams give themselves a stiff,
early season test. FDU put itself on the map last year by spooking
W&L in the NCAAs and the Devils will hope to carry over some of
that momentum in 2010. Cabrini lost by a goal to Stevenson in the
NCAA second round, and still has Casey Grugan to lead the offense.
The Cavaliers obliterated FDU on the road last spring, 18-9.
W: No. 19 Washington
& Lee (0-0) at No. 2 Salisbury (2-0), 4 p.m., Wednesday
Finally, the ladies provide a game of substance in this
young season. I would argue that the Gulls are over-ranked and the
Generals under-ranked at this point in the season, but I think
we'll get a competitive game. Both teams lost a lot from last year,
but Salisbury was able to shake the early-season rust off this past
weekend.
Southwestern (0-0) at
Whittier (1-0), 7 p.m. PT, Thursday
Probably nothing to see here for the effete, D-III snob, but
it's Southwestern's first taste of the division after transitioning
from MCLA Division II, where the Bucs were a tournament team. I'll
be curious to see how they stack up against a third-tier MD3
program.
Colorado State at Lindenwood, 7 p.m. CT, Friday
It's a pretty slow work week for the MCLA, but we'll throw
this one out there for all of the Making Sense fans in St.
Charles, Mo. (and I know you're out there). After being swept in
the Twin Cities (including a stunning loss to Minnesota), the Lions
need a marquee win.
The Power Fives
Men's Division
III
1. Cortland
(0-0)
2. Stevenson
(1-0)
3. Salisbury
(2-0)
4. Gettysburg
(0-0)
5. Middlebury
(0-0)
Women's Division III
1. Franklin
& Marshall (0-0)
2. Salisbury
(2-0)
3. Gettysburg
(0-0)
4. Hamilton
(0-0)
5. TCNJ (0-0)
MCLA Division I
1. Michigan
(0-0)
2. Chapman
(3-0)
3. Simon
Fraser (1-0)
4. Brigham
Young (2-1)
5. Florida
State (6-0)
MCLA Division II
1. St.
Thomas (0-0)
2. Dayton
(2-0)
3. St.
John's (3-0)
4. Davenport
(2-0)
5. Utah
Valley (3-0)
Slides & Rides
Trivia!
After their 22-7 pasting of St. Mary's on Sunday, how
many 20-goal games have the Maroons racked up in 2009 and 2010? No
peeking. Answer later...
The Other
Wolverines
The MCLA has another set of Wolverines to be wary of.
While Michigan has had complete ownership of Division I for the
past two seasons, Utah Valley is making a play for dominance in
D-II this spring. The Wolverines rolled to three wins in just over
24 hours at the Full House Face-off - an event in Las Vegas
attracting some of the best teams in the division.
UVU started the event by downing Western Washington, one of the
contenders from the PNCLL, 16-10 on Friday and followed it up with
a 15-10 victory over Cal State-Fullerton - perhaps the top dog in
the SLC - in the early game on Saturday. Utah Valley topped off its
3-0 start with a 22-9 humbling of Western Oregon, the odds-on
favorite to take the PNCLL.
With an extremely difficult schedule, which includes a date with
BYU, the second-ranked team in D-I, next weekend, the Wolverines
appear to be a lock for Denver. The rest of the division should be
worried.
Rookie Problems
Jim Berkman is starting to face a dilemma with two of
his freshmen - defenseman Brett Baer and attackman Eric
Law. It's a good problem to have, but the Salisbury coach needs to
get them on the field more.
"Those two freshmen are definitely moving up the scale," said
Berkman. "Baer is 220 pounds and one of the fastest kids on the
team. He's making every upperclassmen on defense work a little bit
harder because they know how good he is. Eric Law just makes plays.
He's just a lacrosse player. He can finish inside, with
a great change of direction."
Berkman credited Law, who was the Colorado high school player
of the year, with one of the game-changing plays against
Lynchburg.
"He just made a ridiculous inside roll move and stuck a one-on-one
against the goalie and kind of broke their momentum and put us on
the right foot in the third quarter," said Berkman, who might move
Law back to the midfield (where he played in high school) to make
sure he's on the field more often.
"I think we've got more out of both of them at this time than maybe
we thought we were going to get."
Don't Believe the
Hype
A question everyone was asking when Wisconsin-Madison
was ranked No. 18 by LM heading into its first season with the MCLA
was, ‘Are these guys legit?' Early answer: apparently
not.
Wisconsin dropped its season opener on Saturday night in The Dells,
12-10, to Western Michigan, a team that finished 3-8 last year in
the CCLA. This is the first game of the season, so one can't make
too broad a prediction about the rest of the year, but this score
leads me to believe it might be a rude introduction to the MCLA for
the Badgers. UW has three weeks to stew over the loss until they
play again on March 13 at Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
NOTES: Virginia Wesleyan isn't leaving a whole lot
of margin for error (one goal win over Mary Washington; overtime
win over York), but the Marlins are 2-0...the temptation will be
there to crown Stevenson and marginalize Stevens after their
opening day victories, but it's best to let the first game of the
season, especially wins, simmer for a little bit...TRIVIA: Roanoke
hit the 20-goal mark nine times in 2009. Throw in the two this
season and it's 11 so far. There will be more.
