Weekend Watch: Colorado State’s New Math
by Jac Coyne | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff | Coyne Archive | Twitter
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| Jake Flax is the only player on Colorado State to have
his game jersey match his shooting shirt. The rest of the Rams head
into every contest with the number '1' on their back. © Mary MacDonald |
It’s tough to figure out who’s who when the Colorado
State men’s lacrosse team is warming up before a game. With
every Ram player having the number ‘1’ emblazoned on
his shooting jersey, only stick-length can narrow down the various
positional subsets. With the 35 or so No. 1s sprinting around the
field combined with all of the practice balls, it’s like the
Rams have gone binary.
In some respects, they have.
After an uncharacteristic 2009 season when CSU posted an 11-8
record and was bounced in the first round of the MCLA tourney, the
team has narrowed its focus down to two denominators – the
next play and family – and are hoping everything else falls
into order.
“Everyone wears the No. 1 on their shooting shirts because we
have one goal and we’re going to make one play at a time. It
has really become a nice rallying cry for us,” said Alex
Smith, State’s first-year head coach. “This team just
buys in. Last year’s team did too, but I’m not sure if
they really knew what it took to play at a high level
consistently.”
The one play at a time mantra is really just constricting the scope
of the ubiquitous one game at a time cliché, but it helps
keep the players concentrating on the finer details,
allowing them to block out much of the clutter.
There was plenty of that last year.
Some of it undoubtedly had to do with the sense of entitlement that
comes from a program that has had as much success at CSU. The owner
of the most national championships in MCLA history (4) along with
three other trips to the title game, the Rams had grown used to
just showing up and hoping the green and gold helmet would do much
of the rest.
That attitude would have likely been stripped away when CSU lost to
Michigan, 16-3, and Minnesota-Duluth, 9-8, in consecutive days in
early April to drop the Rams to 8-5, but by then they were dealing
with the loss of the program’s competitive compass.
Flip Naumburg, who started the Colorado State program and built it
into a non-varsity power, took a leave of absence midway through
the year, throwing everything out of whack.
“We lost our leader,” said junior attackman Cooper
Kehoe, the Rams leading scorer. “We didn’t really know
what the whole deal was. It was brought upon us so quickly that it
was more of a shock. Flip is CSU lacrosse. He started it and
he’s one of the reasons I came here.”
“I think a lot of the wind was taken out of our sails,”
said Smith of Naumburg’s hiatus. “We also came to the
harsh reality that we weren’t as good as we wanted to
be.”
With the mentor gone, Smith took over the reins for the remainder
of the season. While Naumburg has returned in a pseudo associates
role – Smith is listed as the head coach and Naumburg as the
co-head coach – Smith has made a point of implementing an
‘us against the world’ mentality that most families
adopt in rough times.
That theme carried over into the start of this season when family
was one of the core concepts the Rams have been built around.
“We’re a lot closer of a team,” said Kehoe,
differentiating this year from last. “We preach that whole
family thing. There is no disparity on the team; we’re so
close. You can feel a connection with everyone, which is a little
different from year’s past.”
“This has been one of the most fun teams to be a part of
during my entire career at CSU and I’ve been here through all
the national championships,” said Smith, who was a former
goalie for the Rams. “No matter how it all shakes out in the
end, I think this team will be something special. Hopefully that
will manifest itself into something we want, but right now
it’s how we play together and remain a family.”
The results have been just as the team had hoped – an 11-0
start to the season, including victories over seven ranked
teams.
Now, however, is when the Rams will really put their two-fold
approach to the test.
It starts this weekend when CSU hosts No. 8 Minnesota-Duluth on
Friday night and No. 1 Michigan on Sunday – the two teams
responsible for the Rams nadir in ’09 – and finishes up
with No. 7 Michigan State and No. 4 Brigham Young over the next two
weeks.
The stress will be monumental for the second-ranked Rams, but Smith
feels he has the leadership to make it happen. Senior Andrew Stein
has been a key on the defensive end while, Kehoe, just a junior,
has been a vocal presence on attack.
It hasn’t been easy for Kehoe, who never considered himself a
rah-rah guy among his teammates, but after last year he knew
someone had to stand up.
“I usually just want to lead with my actions on the field,
but this year it has become more vocal for me because we have a
great freshman class and a lot of younger guys and I want to tell
them some of the things they need to work on,” said Kehoe,
the son of Brian Kehoe, the architect of the Chico (Calif.) State
program. “That was really a focus for me at the beginning of
the year after being chosen one of the four captains. They listen
to me and I listen to them.”
“If someone makes a mistake or makes the wrong read, Flip or
I will be on the way over to say something to them and Cooper will
already be in their ear saying the exact same thing we
would,” said Smith. “So we just turn around and
leave.
“Cooper really understands the game and now he has the
ability to impart that on his teammates. We call it ‘Camp
Cooper.’ When he’s taking attackmen to the side and
talking to them, Flip or I will say, ‘Hey, it’s Camp
Cooper over there.’”
One of the reasons Kehoe came to Colorado State was because of its
reputation as the premier program in the MCLA. After last season,
he and the rest of the current Rams are trying to return to that
glory while re-branding the team to fit their style.
“Coming in as a freshman, there was talk about the years
before when CSU was winning national championship after national
championship,” said Kehoe. “I think we’re trying
to make a name for ourselves now.”
They’ve certainly achieved that so far, but the newfound
success has allowed Smith to make a connection with the Colorado
State of yore.
“We were the team that everyone was trying to knock off, and,
frankly, that’s the way we expect it to be. I don’t
want to say we’re arrogant, but we want to feel like teams
have to come and get us. Whoever gets in front of us, give us your
best shot and we’ll give you ours, and we’ll see where
the chips fall.”
Call it binary or a dichotomy, but Colorado State is back.
Pressure Zone
Players who will have to make an impact for their team
to win this weekend.
Alexandra Bazzano, Midfield, Springfield
It’s going to take an incredible effort to supplant
Babson as the queens of the NEWMAC, but if you are going to beat
the Beavers, you need a lot of goals. The three teams that own
victories against Babson this year had to average 17 goals,
including the 19 that Tufts hung on the Beavers on Tuesday. Bazzano
is a sniper out of the midfield and must not only pace the scoring
attack for the Pride – she leads the team in goals with 22
– but also be available to transition back on defense to slow
down the prolific Babson attack.
Zack
Carson, Goalie, UC Santa Barbara
I’m sure you can mash the numbers up to some how keep
the dream alive, but this is an elimination game for the Gauchos. A
loss here and UCSB is looking at an 8-6 regular season and likely
another loss in the SLC tourney. Yes, they pulled it off last year
with a similar mark, but the at-large pool looks a lot stronger
this year. Carson’s a senior, so you know he wants to get
back to Denver one last time, and he needs to prove it by putting
the Gauchos on his shoulders and shutting down LMU.
Alex Fox, Middie,
Amherst
There’s nothing quite as tedious as buying into the
whole Williams-Amherst slap fight, no matter what the sport, but
the rivalry does have its share of upsets and this would be a
delicious one if the Lord Jeffs can pull it off. Williams is in
prime position to host a first round conference tournament game,
which would be put in serious jeopardy with a loss. The Ephs are a
stingy defensive team, however, meaning Fox delivering out of the
midfield could give them problems. The sophomore leads Amherst in
scoring (17g, 6a) and will be counted on to get the Jeffs to the
double-digit mark, where good things seem to happen.
Brendan Haas, Goalie, Colorado College
The Tigers are still in the thick of the Pool B race, but
they really need wins over both Kenyon and Wooster when they travel
to Ohio this weekend to remain squarely in the mix. Who do you look
for in that situation? A Buckeye Stater, of course. Haas,
who’s from Shaker Heights, has been a revelation for Colorado
College in net this year, racking up a 5-1 record, a 5.73 GAA and
58.4 save percentage. If the junior can keep the bad goals to a
minimum, the Tigers could up their stock.
Emily Johnson, Attack, Tufts
Life is pretty simple for the Jumbos right now. If Tufts
scores in the double digits, they win. If the Elephants finish in
the singles, they’re toast. Not surprisingly, if No. 12 Tufts
plans on traveling to Hartford and knocking off No. 4 and NESCAC
heavyweight Trinity, it’ll needs lots o’ goals. Enter
Johnson. The senior leads her team with 32 goals and 12 assists in
eight games and will need to hit at least her average for the
Jumbos to triumph.
Elizabeth Marino, Defense, Ithaca
The Bombers and Ducks square off to see who is going to take
control of the Empire 8. Stevens is scoring an obscene amount of
goals lately – they have 19 in each of the last three
contests – so Marino will be counted on to neutralize Alyssa
Pigott (30g, 12a). By taking one aspect away from the Stevens
offense, Ithaca could gain just enough confidence to keep this game
close at the end.
Charlie Nesser, Defense, Minnesota-Duluth
One of the overlooked aspects of the Colorado State-Michigan
game this weekend is Duluth could step up and take a lot of air out
of the 1-2 match-up by upsetting the Rams on Friday night. If
they’re going to do that, it will mean Nesser – the
Bulldogs athletic close defender – will have to have a big
night against CSU’s top-line attackmen Cooper Kehoe and Paul
Larson. It would also lock up All-American status for the
senior.
Bobby Steinhauser, Middie, Stevens
Stevens coach Gene Peluso said St. John Fisher is a
deliberate and efficient team. The most effective way to counter
that strategy is to get the ball, score a bunch early, and force
Fisher out of its comfort zone. Steinhauser has some relatively
pedestrian numbers as far as face-off men go – 54-of-104,
51.9 percent – but he doesn’t have to win all of them.
The senior simply needs to save his best for the first half,
allowing the Ducks to race out quick and make the 10-0 Cardinals
sweat.
Russell Thomas, Middie,
Simon Fraser
All of the hand-wringing and tension over the first-half of
the season will disappear for the Clansmen if they can drop the
hammer on Oregon – their only other competition in the PNCLL
for the conference’s AQ bid – in their match-up this
weekend. Thomas netted four goals in the convincing win over
Arizona State and will need to be the perfect complement again to
Ben Towner and Adam Foss again in order to cook the Ducks.
Slides & Rides
- St. John Fisher keeps coasting right along. The
Cardinals are now 10-0 and one of four undefeated teams left in the
country, but on Saturday Fisher faces by far its stiffest test of
the season against Stevens. The Ducks have been in and out of the
polls, but more importantly they have played a stiff schedule that
will have them we’ll prepared. Gene Peluso, in his first year
as Stevens’ head coach, isn’t playing into the
Cardinals’ record.
“We’re just saying to our guys that it’s two
undefeated teams in the conference going at each other,” said
Peluso. “Their 10-0 record isn’t really our
focus.”
While he’s not getting into the possibility of knocking off
an undefeated and ranked team, Peluso is trying to tap into the
hurt from last year, when Fisher upset then-No. 20 Stevens in the
semifinals of the Empire 8 tournament, ending any NCAA tournament
aspirations. “If that’s not going to get you fired up,
I don’t know what will,” said Peluso.
Peluso likes his team and thinks they’ll have a chance to win
this game if they play up to their potential, but he appreciates
what Fisher has managed to accomplish this season.
“Fisher has done a nice job and they’ve come along
way,” said Peluso, who was also coaching in the E8 when SJF
started its program nine years ago. “They’ve done it
with a good system. They’re a talented bunch, but more
importantly they’re a well-coached bunch. There are not a lot
of bells and whistles, but they’re willing to
work.”
- Colorado State has been alternating the focus of its practices
all week, switching off between preparing for No. 8 Duluth on
Friday and No. 1 Michigan on Sunday. It’s an important
decision for the Rams considering the two very different teams
they’ll be playing in such a short time.
“When you play Minnesota-Duluth, you have to be ready to
compete at every single moment on the field,” said CSU coach
Alex Smith. “They never back down and they play hard on every
possession, clear and ride. Those are all opportunities for you to
compete and you have to rise to the occasion both emotionally and
mentally. Michigan is very cerebral and they obviously ride as good
as anybody. Our feeling on them is if we clear the ball against
Michigan, we’ll be in the game. If we can just stay
competitive in every phase of the game against Duluth, we’ve
got a chance.”
“It’s been a little difficult, but we know what’s
coming,” said CSU junior attackman Cooper Kehoe about
switching between the teams. “We’re just practicing how
we’ve been practicing; just do what we’ve been doing
every week.”
- One of the last remaining non-conference gems left on the
women’s side is this weekend when No. 5 TCNJ entertains No. 1
Salisbury. This will be quite a test for the Gulls’ defense,
which has been superb all season. Only F&M and Stevenson have
managed to crack double-digits, but the Lions will not be cowed by
the Salisbury mystique, especially on their own field. TCNJ
invented mystique. By the way, the last three interesting
non-conference games all involved TCNJ. The Lions still play No. 2
F&M (April 23), No. 10 Stevens (April 29) and No. 8 Cortland
(May 2).
- Peluso also talked about the realities of our cyber world. With
all of the access to records and stats, there’s not a lot a
coach can tell his players about a team that they don’t
already know. “Our guys know more about this stuff than they
should,” he said. “In this day and age with the
Internet, they know everything. It’s tough for us to add any
urgency or downplay something because these guys can read and see
what’s being said about us and what’s said about
them.”
MD3 Snipes: With
its one-goal win over Williams on Wednesday, Conn. College keeps
chugging along. The Camels are now 9-0 with games against Bates and
Merchant Marine before a potential showdown with undefeated Tufts
next Saturday…congrats to Swarthmore for snapping one of the
nastiest streaks in Division III. The Garnet beat Washington
College, 11-7 on Wednesday, breaking a drought of 57 years between
wins. Tyler Bradshaw scored four goals in the win…WAC is
3-7, isn’t going to make the Centennial tournament, and still
has No. 5 Dickinson, No. 18 Cabrini and No. 1 Salisbury still on
the docket. The Shoremen are looking at their first 10-loss season
since 1971.
WD3 Snipes:
Head-scratcher of the week: No. 5 TCNJ defeated then-No. 6
Gettysburg, 13-10 on Saturday and when the Lions looked at the
rankings on Monday evening, they found out they actually lost a
point in the poll. Very odd. The Lions did stay at No. 5 while the
Bullets slipped to No. 7…congrats to Stevens coach Celine
Cunningham, who recorded her 100th career win against
Hartwick earlier this week…also a hat trip to Trinity, which
recorded the 300th win in the program’s history in
a win over Wesleyan…Middlebury now has three losses after
bowing to Babson and Colby last week. Five of the Panthers’
seven remaining games are against ranked opponents.
MCLA Snipes:
Because they host their national championship week in Denver so
early – May 11-15 – things are starting to wind towards
conference tournament time. There are a couple of traditional
rivalries left, but now much of the wait will be for the automatic
qualifiers to get fleshed out…the Florida-Florida State
grudge match this weekend will take place in Doak Campbell Stadium,
the home of the Seminoles’ football team…in the SELC
Division II, we’ll have an elimination game when Emory and
Kennesaw State square off. They are both in the same division and
the loser won’t make the conference tourney – a certain
disqualification from nationals with the strength of this
year’s at-large pool…California against Cal Poly on
Saturday is a likely preview of the WCLL championship game. That
league will only be getting one bid this year…Chapman head
coach Mike Wood picked up his 50th win in a 20-5 defeat
of Southern Cal. His record is 50-6.
