B2B: Defense Preserves Michigan's Repeat
by Jac Coyne | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
|
| He's not known as one of Michigan's top guns, but
senior midfielder David Rogers stepped up when he needed to,
scoring three goals in the second half to lift the Wolverines to
their second straight MCLA national title. © Ryan McKee |
DENVER - For as much confidence as Michigan has in its defense,
this isn't how they scripted Saturday's national championship
game.
The Wolverine defense twice held the vaunted Chapman offense
without a shot in the last two minutes of a one-goal game,
preserving a 12-11 victory and the program's second consecutive
MCLA Division I title.
Big Blue will take the result, but they'd rather not have to put
all the pressure on the backline.
"Absolutely not," said Zach Elyachar, Michigan's All-American
defender. "I like it when we're up by five and our offense has the
ball."
"No, I want the ball with our offense," added head coach John
Paul.
It took an offensive player to finally concede what has been a
constant for the champs.
"As an attackman, I'd rather have the ball in my stick with the
game on the line, but our defense has been our foundation all year
and our zone defense has been killing everybody," said Riley
Kearns.
Michigan, which favors a man-to-man defense, was forced into a zone
by a Chapman offense that was confounding the Wolverines best
efforts to contain it in the first half.
With Chris Small controlling the faceoffs and Andrew Clayton
showing a calmness not often seen in a freshman, Chapman started
the game hot. Clayton racked up a natural hat trick in the first
3:15 of the contest and the lead expanded to 4-1 early in the half
when older brother Mike Clayton struck.
Unable to put together quality possessions, Paul had to watch the
Panther offense continue its onslaught. Connor Martin scored the
first of his three goals with 6:44 left in the second quarter to
balloon the Chapman lead to 7-2.
Just like the first time the two teams met early in the regular
season, Chapman held an 8-4 lead at halftime. Coming back to win
that contest, 13-10, the Wolverines were down, but they had the
confidence that they weren't out of it.
"We knew we could come back again and our coaches did a great
job of breaking down the second half into six, five-minute
sections," said David Rogers. "We just tried to win each
one."
By scoring four of the first five goals of the second half,
Michigan quickly cut the Chapman margin to 9-8 with 4:55 left in
the third quarter. Logan Allen stemmed the tide for the Panthers
with a goal off a feed from Connor Martin, but then Rogers stepped
to the fore.
The senior midfielder bounced a shot past Dan Kirkpatrick to bring
the Wolverines within one with 35 ticks left in the third frame and
then finally brought Michigan back to even by ripping a high shot
from 12 yards out early in the fourth.
"He was their fourth or fifth option and he scores three goals,"
said Mike Wood, who tried to eliminate Wolverine big guns Trevor
Yealy and Kearns. "Their team beat us."
"We saw at the end of the season that people started game-planning
for Trevor and Chapman had a great game plan, but I knew I had to
step up," said Rogers. "I'm a captain on this team and I've had big
goals in the past."
Peter Vashar and Yealy followed Rogers' lead, pushing the lead to
12-10 with 9:00 left in the contest.
Meanwhile, Michigan switched to the same zone that had given
Chapman so much trouble in the second half of their regular season
meeting, with similar results. The Wolverines only allowed Andrew
Clayton's fourth goal on an impressive spin move inside in the last
16:35 of the game to keep the final at 12-11.
Andrew Fowler, who made 11 saves on the evening, was also a key in
the second half resurgence.
"I'd prefer the offense had the ball, but it felt good," admitted
Elyachar of the defense playing the decisive role. "For them to
have the ball down by one and to have to rely on us, it definitely
felt good."
It feels good for the second straight year.
