You always think you are going to have success coming into something. You believe that you have the special talents and the different perspective and the enthusiasm to make whatever situation you enter into a magical one. Doesn’t always seem to work our that way though. Still, I have always felt like a winner. That is not to say I have always won, or been completely confident in myself, or always felt important or valuable, or even like I was any good to anyone around me. Often enough I feel like I am in a constant state of screwing up. But that being what it may be, I have always felt like a winner.

            I don’t know if its about my competitiveness. I mean I am really really really competitive, almost to a fault at times. But everyone likes to win, especially athletes, and nobody likes to lose.

I don’t know if it’s the athletes around me. As long as I have played sports I have been around great athletes. I feel like I am constantly around people who have gone on to achieve great accomplishments, whether that be in track, football, soccer, lacrosse, even wrestling. Maybe the group mentality I have been fostered in makes me feel this way.

            I could maybe simply be fortunate. I might have just stumbled into good situations, or bad situations that have a lot of potential to become good, or gotten out of bad situations when they weren’t going anywhere. Lucky stars and all that. Still, you never want to believe it is just being fortunate. I mean, you always want to believe that you have the universe helping you out and that you are fortunate, but if you rely on that too much then it takes away your initiative.

            I have always worked pretty hard. I have always pursued success. Not always to the best of my abilities, and not always with a single-mindedness that many people can achieve, but in most things I have really wanted I have tried to become better. I have worked harder at this game of Lacrosse then almost anything else in my life. In that same vein, it has frustrated me almost as much as anything ever has. We have a love/hate relationship, this game and I. Still, some people around me don’t seem to work hard at all and seem to achieve more than me, while others work just as much or more and I see them continually frustrated. Hard work is a fickle reliance.

            So quite honestly, I don’t know why I have always felt like a winner. I have a trophy case, but it has plenty of bronze medals on it. I have report cards from my past that say “needs improvement” and “doesn’t complete work satisfactorily.” Shoot, I was on the first lacrosse team in 3 years at RHS not to go to the state championship game, then we lost in the semi’s when I was a senior. Our football team had a losing record when I was a sophomore and junior. This team I am on now has never even made the play-offs while I was here, even though before I came they went like 11 straight years. Loyola had the best winning percentage of any D1 lacrosse team in the 90’s for Christ sake. As far as the alumni were concerned, we were failures.

            Still, I always thought of myself as a winner. There were times when I of course felt like a failure. A lot of times actually. But being a winner was just something I knew was part of me, even in those times. It was like my youth. My youth is always there, and is always going to have been there. Even when I feel old, or forget what being a kid was like, my youth is always there, triggered by smells and dreams and beers with my friends. Feeling like a winner just falls into that category of things that are a part of my psyche. I see this attribute in every single person I know as well. It is just that in some of us, we get so addicted to the feeling that we start to get a little kooky when it doesn’t manifest itself.

            So we are in the play-offs. Wow. Dream come true, foreal. The day they announced the seedings for the play-offs was the longest day of my life. It was last Sunday, the day after we lost to Hopkins (bullshit by the way, they caught a lucky break because we turned it over. We will see them again). The selection show was on at 9 that night, and we had some doubts about if we were going to make it. Before the Hopkins game we were sure we were going to, but you never know with these conference tournaments and automatic qualifiers. Anyways, I was a wreck all day. I was running around my house yelling at my roommates, calling people, trying to figure out if we thought we made it, what the chances were, who would get in in front of us, what we could do, who would know, etc… It was terrible. I was so stressed out because there was nothing I could do. It was out of my hands. I thought about every game and what we could have done to further solidify our spot. The day was literally counted in minutes for me. It was literally a task to find whatever I could do to pass the time. I had tests and papers due that I could not even think of worrying about because trying to sit in one spot and concentrate was simply out of the question.

            The room, full of 50 normally very loud and boisterous guys, was completely silent that night at 9. The only noise for the first 5 minutes was a unified in-take of break in surprise when they named Duke the number 1 seed over undefeated Cornell. They announced the first 4 seeds. The entire room was full of shaking knees and churning stomachs. The showed the next match-up. I will remember what it looked like on that bracket on that TV screen forever…

Loyola (Md.)

                        Vs.

#5 Albany

I did the flying fist spinning uppercut Ryu/Ken “arruicken” as soon as I saw it. The entire fucking room exploded.  Hugs and high fives and smiles galore. I mean it was one of the most exciting moments of my life. I have had a lot of those this semester.

I literally still get butterflies in my stomach when I think about the joy of that moment. It was the culmination of to many things to recount here, but which I am sure I have already expressed. Imagine a school-wide dodge ball tournament when you were in elementary school and finding out you were the first pick of everyone. Or getting picked for the lead in the play.  Or finding out that “she” actually secretly liked you the whole time too. Now multiply that times a 4 year build up, add gallons of sweat, tears, blood, and soul, throw a little exponent on the end of how much you have dreamt about, discussed, thought about, and desired this opportunity, and then put it in a matrices because we still don’t know how its going to turn out but dag-na-bit we know for damn sure that we are IN. Then you might be able to understand this joy.

All that just so that I could go to practice again on Monday. “Practice. We talking about Practice. Not a game. Practice.” So that for once in my career I could know what it was like to go out on that turf when it was really, really hot and humid. So that for once everyone else could have gone home for the summer but for us to still be here. Just us, a team who just wants to keep playing together. I am grateful.

Albany is a heck of a team. The play Canadian style in a way, which means very one-handed and very slick skills. They are 14-2 this year, and beat Hopkins early on. They are well coached, one of their coaches being an assistant on the US national team I believe. They have the leading points scorer in the country (yes, more goals and assists that Danowski even). They have between 2 attackemen almost 300 shots. That’s like 25 a game between two players. One kid has 139 shots this year. That is probably more than I have had in 4 years playing here, and I have started for 2 of those years. They love to shoot. They are good shooters. They are great finishers.

            They are like no team I have ever played against in college really. They share the ball unbelievably well. I have seen few times where a team could feed the crease, then make ANOTHER pass to a different guy who is also in the crease, and then score. They have athletic middies, but they don’t play like typical college middies. The dodge more from the corners than from up top, and the look to get under the defense, or feed it inside. There defense will often just shut one guy on the other team, the person they think will most disrupt the offensive flow of a team, and then make you play 5 on 5. They are extremely dangerous in transition and in broken situations. They throw a lot of different looks at you on defense, so it is hard to predict what they are going to try to do or get into a rhythm.

            But they haven’t played a team like us. A team defense like ours is going to mess them up. The way we guard their on-ball players is going to take away their inside guys ability to get open. If we don’t slide, and sort of “look away” from the guy with the ball and instead just watch our man, then we could have success. We are prepared offensively if they shut any of our players, and also are really going to look to take care of the ball. Our best defense is us having the ball.

            Most of all, we are going to hustle like we never have before. We are going to try and own the ground ball war. We are going to swarm. We are going to be very very physical with them. We are going to run by them. Hopefully, we can play our very best thus far, and we are going to beat them.

            My coach said that this week we have to call someone and tell them “I love you, we have a game on Sunday against Albany, and we are going to win.” He wants us to get it into our heads how glad we are to be here, and remember who made it possible for us to be in this position. He also wants us to believe in ourselves, that we are going to play great in this game, and we are going to win. I guess that is what feeling like a winner is about. Having people around me who have always told me “I could” and that “I will,” and me trying my best to fulfill those expectations. I have been blessed with chances to win many times, and some of those times it has come to fruition. I loved knowing I succeeded, and feeling like I was the best. Those things are great. They have a downside too though. What has really stayed in this heart of mine though is the realization that the people who always make me feel like a winner are the people I love most. I remember climbing off the mat after winning the National Championship in the High Jump when I was 14 (not the pole vault, the high jump for the none track folk). The bar had literally bounced off the pegs a good 2 inches in the air and landed back in place. I just sat and watched it wobble. It stabilized, and as I climbed off the mat slowly, contemplating the reality of what had just happened, I turned and looked at the fence behind the pit. There was my mother and father, out it Omaha, Nebraska, in the middle of the summer, for the sole reason to watch me climb off that mat with a smile. I guarantee my mom was talking to the person next to her when it happened, but all she ever cared about was that it made me happy to succeed anyways. I love them for that. From my brother and sister, to my family, my friends, coaches, younger players…Everyone who makes me smile the deep smile, let me say this. I love you, and we are going to win Sunday.

 I feel like a winner because I am a winner. I have won the opportunity to be loved, and that is from God, and has nothing to do with my trophy shelf.

That being said, it would still be amazing to keep winning in this season though. One more really big trophy couldn’t hurt.

There is nothing else that really needs to be said…

They kept us out of the play-offs last year. They are a mile down Charles street from us. Our offensive cooridinator from last year is theirs now. They know everything about us, and we know everything about them. The rivalry gets no bigger than this.

It is supposed to be 70 degrees and sunny on Saturday afternoon.

I mean honestly… what else have I played for? What else have I trained for? If it is not for just this sort of game, then I don’t know what its for. This game has been in my mind and on my heart for a full year. This game last year changed me…

To make good on this promise to myself…

If it happens it happens, if not then thats part of life…

But to win this game. To win this game and to play my best. To play for my teammates and for Linda Woodall and to win this game. Hope upon hope.

No matter what though, it has been, will be, will be remembered as, and is going to be very very tomorrow… 

 Fun

So now I sleep with a grin on my face and a stick by my side (yea I sleep with my stick before a game…say somethin!!) dreaming about a game I have dreamed to play in. Here is my peace.

So to use a quote from my homeboy Milton that I feel speaks truth….

“Not to irkesome toil, but for delight He made us”

goodnight

Need I say more?

It is senior day. I am walking in between a line of my teammates with my mom and dad on either side of me, onto a field which I have bled, sweated, and teared on to play possibly my last home game ever. Cacoons are hatched in my stomach just thinking about this game.

And of course I had stick problems today at practice.

I got a call my freshmen year while I was at home, visiting for a weekend after being at school about 3 weeks. Seems a couple of guys on my team thought it was a good idea to wear swim trunks and the letters I-S-A-B-E-L-L-A painted on their chest, in honor of the hurricane that was set to hit on that Friday night. A photographer snapped their picture, and it was on the front page of the sports section of The Baltimore Sun. Of course they were enjoying malt beverages at this time and looking like they were having the time of their lives. The call I recieved was to inform me that we had practice at 5:30 am monday morning. I was driven back just in time to see my teammates walking out of the dorms in the twilight of the morning, going towards the field. With no sleep, I went and did 500 push ups and 500 sit ups with the rest of my team. Every morning for a week straight we did this (plus 7:00 am study hall, class, actual practice, homework, and life in general). I was practically filling out my tranfer letter at this point.

A list of numbers of games, of shots, of practices, of pity parties, of confidence boosters, of broken sticks, of bruises, of early mornings, of offensive cooridinators, of bad losses and big wins, of I-dont-deserve-to-be-playing-here’s to I-can’t-be-stopped (both true and false from moment to moment) mentalities, of every night of partying I watched other people going towards while I went to the field to shoot, of hours upon hours spent on walls just throwing and throwing, of failures and more failures and a glimpse of hope to failure and frustration to a chance to here…

I mean honestly, this may all be so very melodramatic and over kill and romantasized but this is the fulfillment of almost every dream I have had up untill this point. It just is. As tragic as it is, my identity has been tied up in sports my entire life, and this sport and this team in these past 4 years, that to see it come to this point is almost debilitating. My best friends asked me what I was going to do when I graduate, like basically the question of “what do I want to be when I grow up,” and my mouth moved on a direct impulse from my unrestricted brain (which often gets me into trouble) and I said….

“All I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a college athlete”

Seriously, from as far back as I can remember, this was the dream. Why I do not know? Our culture maybe? Success at sports from a young age? The people I was around? One way or another, getting to where I am now is the culmination of the ambitions of my youth. After this I am lost. Free to dream again, but lost for the moment.

After this.

I still have this game, and this season left. This game tomorrow most importantly though. Honestly, I am going to attack Hobart every chance I get. We are going to go right at these cats and stay coming, stay aggressive, and stay swinging at their chins. There are no other games for me as of right now. You know that mantra “play every game like its your last”? Well guess what… that game is approaching in these next 2 months for this greyhound.

All I can really say though is that I am looking forward to playing, to having fun, to trusting my teammates, and to battling another team with all I’ve got. I am going to do everything I do tomorrow with confidence. I talked to Coach Lantzy today and he said something that really struck a chord with me. He said “there are only two things you can control: your attitude, and your effort.” I see truth in that. Regardless, after having a couple below par games as an individual and as a team at times, I am ready for all of us to play well. It is a new season for us now, and it is time to set the tone for whats to come. Now we do how we do.

Peace

Also exams and school work is holding me down so I just seriously have not had time to do anything. My mom says I have to write whether I win or lose or feel like it or dont though so I am going to get back on the ball…

But not tonight. Been staring at a computer too long for one night. Might get Galucoma if I do it to much longer and the NCAA drug tests if you make the play-offs so I cant even go out like that… Tomorrow I will write fo’ sho’ tho’.

Shot out to my boys Nick and Ned though for representing Durham’s sparkilingest few in Charm City Baltimore, Maryland. Two of the finest fellows I know who ever wielded a long stick on the sacrad grounds of what is now Lenny Wrenn stadium. Ima work on that imagery for them so they dont have to just skim from now on though. Good night and I will hollar at you tomorrow

Bigger than any of the others, Georgetown means the most. They are in our conference, they are in the next big city over, they play a similar style to us, they recruit the same players as us, they are a catholic school like us, they have never won the “big one” like us, I mean hell…, they even have a dog as their mascot like us (of course who has ever heard a bulldog actually called a ”Hoya”?)

Let me be very clear… they are very good in pretty much every aspect of the game. They have strong players at pretty much every position, they hustle, they are talented and athletic, and they are well coached. They can fast-break, they can play 6-on-6 offense, they can dodge to score, or they can pass to score. They play an aggressive style of defense where they push you out to receive the ball, they let their poles hunt their match-ups behind the goal and throw checks, their poles can handle the ball in the clear, and they have a pretty good goalie. They are a good team who pretty much stays in the top 10 year in year out…

And we smoked that ass last year when they were number 2 in the country thinking their shit don’t stink (excuse the profanity)

And that’s all I am going to say about them or about the game last year, because it means about as much as Nifong and Imus’s apologies at this point. It’s done and over and I don’t want to hear about it or worry about it at all at this point because the  game this year is the only one that matters now.

This will be the most competitive game I have played in since being in college. I have no doubt about that. I burn thinking about playing in it. Sleep is going to have to walk in my room and knock me out with an under-hand right tonight to get me to go to sleep.

They want revenge. We have to prove that we are a play-off team. Whoever wins this is the leader in the conference and takes sole position for the automatic qualifier for the NCAA tournament. The game really cannot get any bigger as far as the regular season goes.

They have two losses this year….

Syracuse and Duke

We have watched more film on them than pretty much any other team all year. We know their tendencies like we know the Pledge of Allegiance. We know the checks they are going to throw, we know the moves they like best, we know the goalies weaknesses, we know their face-off guys style, we know their offensive plays, and we know we can win this game if we play as well as we can.

I sat in their head coaches office with my mother at the tail end of an east coast road trip my mother and I made during the first semester of my senior year to look at 5 or so schools. They were my number 1. I wanted to go to Georgetown as much as I wanted to go anywhere else. It was the perfect fit for me as far as I was concerned then. Their coach didn’t even look me in the eyes when he blew me off. The only time he even looked at me was when I told him the other schools I was looking at. I walked around the school just thinking how great it would be to go there, and then basically realised that for me it wasn’t going to be an option. It was a disappointment. It was a slap in the face. It was a heart-break. The coaches from Virginia, the team that won the national championship that year, called me at least once, but Georgetown didn’t have 5 minutes to make me feel welcomed. I have never forgotten that.

I honestly have not felt this way about a game in a while. It is a good feeling. The morning may be different, when the nerves really set in, but for right now I got that hope. That hope is a profound thing. I think that hope is one of the things I will remember most about sports. It is the idea that you are ready even when the task will require as much as you can give. You know the preparation you have put in, and the intincts you have honed, have made you capable to stand up to a true challenge. That hope is the midnight shooting sessions when it is raining and you got school the next morning and you don’t care because all you are seeing is the corners of the goal. That hope is a gift.

 My team feels ready. Now all we have to do is show up and play for each other.

Thats right I said it. Hear it again. We are going to show up and play for each other.

My job tomorrow is simple. You could call me the stylist of our team. My job is to go out and make every other player on my team look good. Then they feel good. Then they play good. Then I feel good because the double V’s, or the double U’s if you will, are situated in their appropriate column underneath (God willing) ”Loyola” in the stat book. Alleluia, holla back!

I wont apologize about not doing the write up on my recruiting camps experience because it is still in the works. I want it to be pristine as possible.

Side Note: Cardinal Gibbons from NC came up to play a couple of games here this week and I saw them walking about campus. I think one of my coaches showed them around and in the locker room and even let them in our film room to watch the last few minutes of our Duke victory from earlier this season. My coaches gave me some guff about how they were asking about me, and honestly, that makes me f****** day. It is so good to hear that kids from Carolina are following the sport at this level. I feel that brotherhood with all NC players because we are all in this struggle together, and if anyone from the home front ever needs anything from me as far as connections or advice goes, I will do whatever I can to help. I love seeing those guys up here, spreading the sport and competing, and seeing them walking around Loyola with those big eyes in all their “Lax” attire takes me back and reminds me how fortunate I am to have come from the same place as them and be at this great school with this great opportunity in this game.

Now, for a little retribution against the school that kept the Tar Heels out of the Final Four this year.

I came around the cage right handed. The time before when I dodged from behind, I tried to shoot as soon as I got to the goal line and I shot to the outside of the goal. This is called being a p_ _ _ _. Told myself I was going to take the step of champions the next time around, and I did. I remember carrying the ball behind, making a move to my right, going towards the goal and then… 

I honestly had not been hit like that since David Kemnuts (spelling) from Jordan High School slid cross crease my junior year. Only time I have ever been knocked out of a game. Funny thing is, I heard this guy won “The Price is Right” or something last year, and basically humped Bob Barker in his Plinko excitement. Coach Kirkley, being the exceptionally benevolent man that he is, asked me if I was ok, and then told me I probably deserved it. He, as usual, was probably right. I had been selfish and continually gone on a defender who continually tied me up and forced me into turn-overs. I remember his name but I am not going to say it on here cause like I say, I’m still a playa and I am not going down like that. Still, he had me tied-up for the umpteenth time when I went to the goal in this instance, and I paid the price. I never even saw it coming. Next thing I knew my mom was standing over me with the trainer and the coaches, looking at me like I had about 9 eyes. Couldn’t chew anything too solid for about a week. 

This time it was my teammates standing over me congratulating me. I said, “Did I score?” as I attempted once, twice, three times to get up. Everything looked like I had been staring at the sun too long. Luckily, I had been inebriated before so I knew how to handle myself in such situations so as to not appear entirely incoherent. I jogged, with a friendly hand to my back, to our teams sideline, passed through the mass of congratualtory teammates to the bench, promptly sat my punch drunk-ass down, and preceded to speak with the high qualified athletic trainer.

Trainer Joe: Do you know what day it is Cory?

Cory (me):Yup

Trainer Joe: And which state you are in?

Cory: uh huh

Trainer Joe: Hey coach!  He’s good to go

Obviously I must have been fit to play from then on. I played the rest of the miserable game in a cloud, making me of little or no use to the team, though as you probably have deciphered from my writing the clouds is a pretty typical place for me most of the time anyways… The tailgate food was the best of the year, its just too bad I couldnt chew anything denser than cheesecake. Still, I scored because I decided to turn the corner, and thats what matters. It made the game 6-5, and it looked as if we had figuratively “turned-the-corner” as a team. Batta-bing Batta-boom, they score 11 straight.

Hear that again…. 

ELEVEN STRAIGHT! 

We gave up 8 goals or less total in 80% of our games this year. ELEVEN STRAIGHT. 

Soooo, back to getting our collective ass whooped..  

The beautiful thing about sports is the way the ball bounces your way when you hustle. It is seriously like magic. Add a bit of enthusiasm and will, and all of a sudden things start to shift in your direction more often then night. Rutgers epitomized this against us. I have never seen more “lucky” bounces or 50-50 situations continually go to one side. It was evidence of our lack of focused energy and their heightened level that the ball just went their way, and we did nothing to stop it. Not to mention, it got to the point they were just throwing the ball at the goal and it was going in. Rule number one of being a teammate is you never ever question your defense (if for no other reason than that in practice your forearms begin to look like candy to the fiery tongues of their poke-checks as soon as you criticize them), with a subsidiary of that rule being never to blame your goalie. I am not blaming him, simply stating that he had a tough game and we did nothing to bring him out of it. Energy and momentum in a game are as contagious as pink-eye, and we didn’t spread the germ to each other. It was a wash-out.  

Losing makes you question everything about yourself, from the way you eat to the way you shoot to the way you talk to people. To me losing is like a continuous Monday morning, where you just feel over-whelmed and incompetent and mad at people for asking you if they can borrow your stapler (wink wink haha). You simply feel like there is no way things are going to be righted again. And then you grow up. 

You stare at the lose in the face and correct the mistakes and learn from it and practice harder and prepare better and concentrate fuller and man up. Everyone loses. I consider myself fortunate to have won as much as I have in my life, and I have lost a lot a lot a lot. When I was 11 years old I had to High Jump at a track meet in the middle of Hurricane Bertha at like 8 at night. The wind was literally blowing the bar off without even touching it, and we were all freezing. I had lost a total of 2 times in this event in 3 years, and both of those loses were at the AAU National Championships. I came in 4th this time, and did not qualify to compete in the next meet in New Orleans, where the nationals were being held that year. I wept, not cried, wept, in the van ride home.  

What I did in that event later in my history is for those who want to know to ask about, but needless to say, losing is how you deal. I believe failure is the greatest cause for success in this world. Still doesn’t mean I like it, but it can be useful. So how we deal with this lose is up to us, but my team is made of the right “ish,” and our response will be righteous. This was a big lose, but not one that destroys our play-off hopes. We fight forward of our own accord and that means its up to us, and honestly, that is really the way it should be. Thank God for another game. 

Which just happens to be Georgetown, and I got too much to say about those fake bull-dogs for right now. 

I am putting this following statement out there so I will be held accountable in my own words to fulfill it. My brother is demanding that I write about my experiences in the recruiting camps after my junior year of high school. He says that people may want to read about that, which sounds like horse manure to me, but he is the eldest so I will do as he says. So, later this week expect a post about Top 205 and the U-19 try-outs. Happy Easter. 

“You look at the lose in the face and chose a path and walk it.”

They are in our conference too, so in a way this game is much bigger than either the Duke or Syracuse game because if we win out conference we get an automatic bid to the NCAA tounnament, which is the main goal for the regualr season.

So for the third year in a row, Rutgers is a big win for us. Hopefully the weather does not have to be the same for us to be successful. Hopefully it will be sunny in New Jersey as we win. If its gotta rain for Loyola to win though, bring on the torrents.

Post is short because I am writing it in the morning before we go get on the bus. If I can ellaborate more from the hotel I will. Wish us luck.

With 1 minute and about 13 seconds left on the clock, a timeout was called where my team came screaming to the sidelines. We were up 11-7 on Syracuse, in front of a huge crowd on a 65-degree, sunny Saturday afternoon. Most of us could taste the victory drinks in the backs our throats. Amidst the chaos, I yelled “Its not over yet, the game is not over yet, THE GAME IS NOT FUCKING OVER YET!” Our team hushed and attempted to quiet down as we rallied around our coach for final instructions: Win the face-off, carry the ball all the way down the side of the box to the end-line, run into the box, and keep it on our end for the remainder of the game. Still, the smirks crept to our faces. We were going to beat the best college lacrosse program of all time…how could we not smile? Panic does not have substance.

They win the face-off, get it to the donner of the historic number 22, the most heralded number in lacrosse, the number worn by Gary Gait and all the Powells, the number that if you take as a freshmen is the equivalent of taking number 23 for the Chicago Bulls as a rookie, the number of the guy who is most likely to think they can win a game with 1 minute left down by 3 goals, the number of a player who left-hand cradles through a double team to put it in the back of the net at close-range. Score: 11-8. I would say that most often, Panic begins in the breathing.

They line up for the next face-off, win it cleanly on our All-American candidate face-off specialist, goose it out to their stick-savvy All-American long pole Steve Panerelli  (who in a pre-game interview spoke about how well they always play against Loyola), who is pushed to the outskirts of the box. The time is around 37 seconds. Our entire team begins to converge on him, knowing from the scouting report that this is one pole who will take it to the rack. He passes across his body, across the field, to Steven Brooks, a big lefty middie out of Chicago, one who is of the typical Syracuse fashion, who steps down maybe 2 yards from the top of the box, and releases a bullet to the top-shelf of the goal. Score: 11-9. I think when you really know that Panic has begun to set in is when it drops into the stomach. That is where you really feel it.

They win the ensuing face-off, get it to one of their other starting attackmen, who attacks the goal hard from the left-handed side of the field. Our close defenseman plays strong defense, maybe too strong, because he draws a penalty. They are so arrogant in their skills that they historically don’t ever really run set man-up plays, they just bang the ball around until they get a decent shot for one of their lethal shooters and rely on that. They had already scored a couple on us in this fashion earlier in the game. They call a time-out, come out, bang the ball two passes, get it to number 22, who proceeds to shoot from no angle to the near pipe corner from the low lefty spot on man-up. Goalie barely reacts to the ball. Score: 11-10. Panic has a tendency to force knees to the ground and eyes to the sky in prayer.

At least we get a scramble in the next face-off, killing precious time off the clock. They still pick up the ball. Another foul, another man-down situation for us, another time-out. 8 seconds without oxygen for a group of green and gray stick wielding kids. Will they actually run a play this time? We take a risk and extend to play the ball, making it 5 on 4 behind our defender. I subconsciously hear a countdown from the teammate behind me as they pass the ball. I can watch the play while he watches the clock. One pass, one second. Two passes, two seconds. 4-3-2. A pass goes into a player who has gotten naked on the doorstep of the goal. Fakes high. Shoots high. Moment of silence…

Panic is released into the air with so many screams and gloves and mouthpieces…

Green and White gloves to be exact.

Our Canuck had done it again, making a save in the last second to win us another game. He is tackled like he just caught a short punt and everyone else on the football team forgot to block. I am not a gay man, but I hugged this team of men like I loved them. I do love them. Ok, so that was over-dramatic and romanticized, but honestly, so was the game. A teammate said that was the greatest lacrosse game he had ever seen, which I do not agree with, but to make that statement shows the magnitude of the situation. It was alumni weekend and if we have a more hated rival than Johns Hopkins for our alumni, it is Syracuse. I, personally, was looking for the “hundred-dollar hand-shake” from at least a couple of these rich alumni after the game to be quite honest with you. HAHA, I did not mean that. That doesn’t actually happen, just in case any NCAA officials out there are reading, or any little kids who think they are going to make money playing college lacrosse are reading either. It is just a statement of hyperbole to show that grandiosity of the event. It was a big deal beyond the group of 50 guys who are directly involved with this team. It resonates through a community.

I said that if we win this game, I will remember it the rest of my life, and I think I will. I have scenes from this game that are frozen in my mind, and that’s what its about. These moments are great and I am loving being in them, but the memories are powerful too. I just hope I can give each element, moment and memory, its equal weight and not let either one dilute the other.

It does not even matter that I played poorly. I don’t know why this happened, I just made mental errors. Athletically I did some good things, but I hurt our team with some lack-of-concentration mistakes. This is a battle I am going to continue to fight with in my mind, but one that can be won. “In everything you do in this life, you have to learn to concentrate. To focus.” These are words of wisdom to my young ears, straight from the general himself, Bob Knight. Learning to concentrate is a practiced ability just like any other. That is a digression, though. Honestly, if I play bad and we win, then that is perfectly fine. Winning is what matters. I want to play well to help my team win and to praise that which made me, but the greatest sign of this is not goals or assist or broken ankles of opponents. It is the W in the appropriate column.

Richard Ladd and TL Hutchins, former teammates at Riverside and current friends of mine, made the 7-hour trip from Wilmington to see this game, which means more to me than they probably know. When I decided to go to Loyola as a senior and was still dreaming, I would brag to Rich about my future of playing in games like this. TL, and guys like him younger than me who grew up watching me play and emulating that as I had emulated the players before me, can probably go down as one of the more significant factors of me choosing Loyola over Duke. In my youthful need to prove something to the world, I chose to shun the local black-hole of Duke (and in a way Carolina), who sucked in local products and stole their sunshine to the hometown admirers by drowning them with Long-Islanders and Baltimoreans, never giving them the opportunity to really shine. I couldn’t be one of those guys at that time, because I needed guys like TL to know that a kid from Durham could go into a traditional college lacrosse power like Loyola and make an impact. Obviously there have been great players from NC who went on at Duke and Carolina and top level D-2 and D-3 schools that have been phenomenal players, but I had visions of grandeur. TL coming and watching this game made these dreams of my teens into actualities of my life. My high-school senior year dreams are manifesting themselves into my college senior year realities. This is a profound thing.

I sat in Rich’s living room and watched Kevin Raspet’s Navy team play in the national championship game after my freshmen year, and told Rich that it was his responsibility as the person who taught me how to not just be an athlete but a lacrosse player, and as the main person who I believe really sowed the love of the game in me, to come and see me play, and that one day he would watch me play in the National Championship game. He has fulfilled one half of our agreement. TL and Rich arrived at my house at 5 in the morning to see the 1 o’clock game. They left Sunday morning after a long night of victory celebration, to go back to their world of instilling the love of the game in middle school kids in Wilmington. This is friendship to me.

So next up is Rutgers. We all know that an upset here for us would be devastating. It is time to show our stones and step up and play like we should play all the time. This means practicing in this manner. This is a conference game, so in many ways it is more vital to our play-off hopes than ‘Cuse was. I will enjoy the rest of my victory beverage tonight, and then grab my lunch pail for tomorrow, because it is time to go back to work. I cannot afford to have another game where I hurt our team, so I have to become a better teamate this week.

We have to become a better team. This is me being Rudy. This is us learning how to win.

So now we have the Orangemen of Syracuse. Obviously I do not need to explain about the history of the lacrosse teams of Syracuse. They have produced probably the best players of all time in the Gaits and the Powells, as well as numerous other all-american and world-team players. They play in a 100,000 seat indoor dome called “The Carrier Dome,” that has to be entered like a space shuttle. You go in one door, close it to seal the air pressure, then open another door into the actual arena. That’s all well and good, but this is a home game for Loyola, and we aren’t playing a jersey, we are playing against a bunch of kids from up-state New York, and Loyola has stolen the best up-staters that that misbegotten land has produced in the past 3 years anyways, so I would call them the under-dogs. The Syracuse of the past is gone. This Syracuse team is a bunch of individuals who are thinking about their own legacy… as individuals. God I want to win this game…

Still, it is always best to play with confidence yet with an underdogs mentality, so I still call us the true under-dogs. To be quite honest with you, I am terrified before every game I play…I don’t know why, I just am. I mean maybe terrified is the wrong word. I am nervous, excited, scared, tensed up… just all-around energized. I just try to let that emotion run its course though, and then let my instincts take over once the game starts. That nervous energy then becomes useful energy to add that extra boost in my split dodge, that extra snap in my shot, and that extra keeness in my mind. I trust those elements, and that is where I have grown…

Every game is different though, so I try not to worry to much about the little things that go on before the game. I realize the game is played on the field, and all of the build-up has an effect, but nothing irreversible.

This probably has sounded like a bunch of nonsense to most people, but this is my blog and I will vent how I choose.

Back to Syracuse. They are a good team, with a lot of talent. Their first 7 offensive players would all be stars on any other team in the country. Kind of like the New York Knickerbockers.

With a team like this, we have decided that we are going to slide near-man, or adjacent. This means that rather than slide from the inside guy on defense, we will slide from the player who is the next player around the outside of the offense. To rephrase this, we haven’t changed our slide package, we just know that we are going to be required to slide near man a whole lot when the game calls for it, so we are ready to do that. If you don’t know the difference between sliding near man/adjacent or sliding from the crease, ask someone who knows. It is important to know if you want to know how defenses work, and you cannot play offense unless you know how defenses work.

By sliding this way, we are forcing a team that likes to go to the goal for themselves or for an assist, to instead make multiple passes after their initial dodge to score their goals. This means unless they play very unselfishly and share the ball exceptionally well, we are going to make them make very difficult plays.

Offensively we are going to go right at them. We are going to attack their short sticks on defense, and we are going to run right by them. They are players who like to throw checks and like to put the ball on the ground. This means they take risks, and this means they open themselves up for defeat if the risks fail. There is something to be said for running hard with the ball, and running strong with the ball. Power cradling and keeping your feet moving can get you out of a lot of bad situations. My tendency as a younger player, and still sometimes, was to hold my stick out away from my body with one hand and try to keep it out away from the defender when I got into a bad spot. This makes me weak with the ball because a light check would dislodge it. As I have matured, I have noticed that there are times when it is better to keep the stick in tight with two hands and power cradle through traffic when that happens. Of course being fast and running away from or through trouble is a must to, and always keeping you feet moving.

So we are going to go right at them and stick our shots when we have the opportunity. We are going to try and shake up the goalie because we think that he is sort of a head case who will start to open up and let easy goals in when you get on him. This means shooting with discipline and confidence. Shooting to the right spots in the goal, and trusting that it will get there.

Finally, we are just going to play as hard as we can. There is nothing to substitute that. Playing hard and having fun when you are playing are the two of the most key ingredients to being successful in sports. Learning to play hard all of the time is what separates talented and good players from great players. It is a practice of discipline. As much as people hate on him, Kobe Bryant is a prime example of playing hard all the time. He wills himself to where he gets to (with some help from God he says), and it shows in his play.

I want this one tomorrow. I believe we can win. It is going to be sunny and the local pub is all you can drink for 10 bucks from 10-12, so I expect a rowdy crowd. It’s going to be a good day to be a Hound’. Thank you God for making me one.