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No. 17 Rutgers Men’s Lacrosse Season Starts Saturday

O'Keefe is definitely a pure shooter, and needs his hands free for more than just a flash. Sounds like he didn't have that extra second. Ament reminded me a lot of Eamon McEneaney from way back when in that he altered his game when paired up with a deadly shooter, in his case Mike French, and had the passing chops to do it. But both could have been goal scorers if they wanted.
Russo played O’Keefe all day and played great against him.
 
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Stats coming in. Connor Kirst goes 3 and 4 in his first game as a Knight. His brother makes 15 saves and plays aggressive out of the cage. Outlets are on point. You know Big Kyle is looking down with that big smile on this one. What a game by those guys. The pressure had to be huge but they were all of that and then some.

Dugenio goes for 48% at the faceoff spot, and closed when it counted. Our D was nasty. They played hard and together. Our shorties had a great game, including Kamish who had two massive groundballs when we needed them most. Russo on O'keefe was a monster and how sweet was Charalambides last goal? That kid's stroke is just poetry. There isn't a more pure stroke in the game when his hands are free.

We got stronger in the offseason where we needed to- up the middle and Connor Kirst is an obvious x factor. There is a reason he was a first team AA last year and we saw why today. What a beast.

Continued good health and if we can avoid the stringent B1G Covid protocols, and we are cooking with gas. Next week is another big one, as is every week. This all B1G schedule is just incredibly competitive.

We certainly passed the first test though. Enjoy it.
 
The rematch in Happy Valley should be interesting. Remember you play everyone twice this year
 
Down 7-5 went on a 6-2 run!!! Opposite of what we’re use to lol!

We made saves and had some timely faceoffs wins. Big credit to the guys on the wings as well as Dugenio. They came up huge. Saves and faceoffs wins with our offense and that's a good deal for us.
 
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The rematch in Happy Valley should be interesting. Remember you play everyone twice this year

Yep. Road wins in this league are hard to come by. It's such a tough conference. One of the things that makes it so challenging is that almost all the teams have different styles. You have us and Penn St who want to play fast, you have Ohio St. which wants to grind, you have Maryland who plays somewhere in the middle, and Michigan and Hopkins who are figuring it out.

One huge thing about today. Our offense should flow even more. The PTSD should be gone from years past where they had to be perfect. The more they see the D standing tall and faceoffs being won, the more their natural talents will flow. That's huge for confidence.
 
Stats coming in. Connor Kirst goes 3 and 4 in his first game as a Knight. His brother makes 15 saves and plays aggressive out of the cage. Outlets are on point. You know Big Kyle is looking down with that big smile on this one. What a game by those guys. The pressure had to be huge but they were all of that and then some.

Dugenio goes for 48% at the faceoff spot, and closed when it counted. Our D was nasty. They played hard and together. Our shorties had a great game, including Kamish who had two massive groundballs when we needed them most. Russo on O'keefe was a monster and how sweet was Charalambides last goal? That kid's stroke is just poetry. There isn't a more pure stroke in the game when his hands are free.

We got stronger in the offseason where we needed to- up the middle and Connor Kirst is an obvious x factor. There is a reason he was a first team AA last year and we saw why today. What a beast.

Continued good health and if we can avoid the stringent B1G Covid protocols, and we are cooking with gas. Next week is another big one, as is every week. This all B1G schedule is just incredibly competitive.

We certainly passed the first test though. Enjoy it.
Great post, Cali. Couldn’t help thinking how happy Kyle is looking down on two of his boys lighting it up for Scarlet!

48% at the x is huge. We don’t need to dominate on faceoffs we just need to win our fair share. Even bigger was the fact that when we won when we absolutely needed it. Good chance we don’t come back if we don’t win that bunch of faceoffs early in the 4th.

Was really impressed with the defense. We made a powerful PSU offense look very pedestrian at times, though clearly no Ament is a huge void. If the defense can continue to play like this, the offense will only get better as the season goes on.
 
It was a really solid win for our guys...I don't think this was an accident...it's early, and we have a long way to go and every game is tough...but as you see, you solve for some issues, most notably the face off x, add an All American midfielder (playing attack today), and we have a lot of horses here...lots of depth, big bodies...look, you've got Kamish and Coyne playing SSDM/two way middie...those two guys would probably be 1st line O middies on a very high % of good D1 teams this year...

Our goaltending was great

This team can do some things if they stay healthy...and stay level...keep grounded and keep working...

Enjoy this one...OSU is on the clock
 
Good win for the boys, super happy for the Kirst Boys and for the entire team. They hit the key metric by combining to be over 100% when combing faceoffs and saves. The two biggest areas of need payoff immediately. Dugenio did a great job all day making the PSU fogo's work for their winds and he won a couple of faceoffs but did not get the GB. As @Caliknight said the wing play was significantly better with Kamish coming up with a couple of huge GB's off the wing.

Rutgers's defense was also was tough and super smart not to slide off of O'Keefe. Russo did a great job of forcing him to his right and simply playing heavy to his left hand. Russo's emergence allowed Massessa to move back to his more natural position of LSM where is also played very well.

Knobloch is the real deal and I saw it firsthand coaching against him in HS. A very good player who looks to have carved out a niche for himself as a freshman.

The day, however, belonged to the Kirst's who were simply awesome today.

@Golfer2019 makes a great point that these kids have sacrificed a lot to get to play and we need to recognize guys like Kammish and Coyne (who started his career at attack at Rutgers) for willingly moving to SSDM to make this team even tougher to deal with.
 
Also Penn State goalie made some great saves that would ordinarily be goals. We should have won by two or three more goals. Overall great team win!
He did. So did ours though. This was a great game all the way around. Especially because we came out on top.

Our O is going to get better and better. And they are already good. There was a very quiet buzz about RU from those in the know. Cat is out of the bag now.
 
What did that prick say? He hates Rutgers. And we hate him. Some bad blood there.

Evidently in the pregame (OSU-Hopkins) he said "watch out for Rutgers" and touted Kirst which received great condescension from the color guy and show producer. With 2 minutes left he announced th RU final, Kirst's stats and spent spent the next 2 minutes taunting everybody.

During the game he posed an interesting question for BiG teams. With an all conference schedule it will next to impossible for any but the Top 25 on each to get any playing time. No bench clearers this year. "So how do keep the rest of the team motivated?"
 
Evidently in the pregame (OSU-Hopkins) he said "watch out for Rutgers" and touted Kirst which received great condescension from the color guy and show producer. With 2 minutes left he announced th RU final, Kirst's stats and spent spent the next 2 minutes taunting everybody.

During the game he posed an interesting question for BiG teams. With an all conference schedule it will next to impossible for any but the Top 25 on each to get any playing time. No bench clearers this year. "So how do keep the rest of the team motivated?"
Thanks. Can’t stand that guy. He’s a big mouth. He must really think we are something to be talking us up. Even when we are something he never does that.
 
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Evidently in the pregame (OSU-Hopkins) he said "watch out for Rutgers" and touted Kirst which received great condescension from the color guy and show producer. With 2 minutes left he announced th RU final, Kirst's stats and spent spent the next 2 minutes taunting everybody.

During the game he posed an interesting question for BiG teams. With an all conference schedule it will next to impossible for any but the Top 25 on each to get any playing time. No bench clearers this year. "So how do keep the rest of the team motivated?"
With Covid, depth is going to be a constant issue. You have already seen a ton of kids playing. Many of these kids are 1 positive test from playing and you may see that depth play out over the course of the year
 
Evidently in the pregame (OSU-Hopkins) he said "watch out for Rutgers" and touted Kirst which received great condescension from the color guy and show producer. With 2 minutes left he announced th RU final, Kirst's stats and spent spent the next 2 minutes taunting everybody.

During the game he posed an interesting question for BiG teams. With an all conference schedule it will next to impossible for any but the Top 25 on each to get any playing time. No bench clearers this year. "So how do keep the rest of the team motivated?"
With Covid, depth is going to be a constant issue. You have already seen a ton of kids playing. Many of these kids are 1 positive test from playing and you may see that depth play out over the course of the year
First thing I thought of when the question was asked.
 
We obviously have a couple of key pieces we can’t lose but depth is there in spades
 
Good win for the boys, super happy for the Kirst Boys and for the entire team. They hit the key metric by combining to be over 100% when combing faceoffs and saves. The two biggest areas of need payoff immediately. Dugenio did a great job all day making the PSU fogo's work for their winds and he won a couple of faceoffs but did not get the GB. As @Caliknight said the wing play was significantly better with Kamish coming up with a couple of huge GB's off the wing.

Rutgers's defense was also was tough and super smart not to slide off of O'Keefe. Russo did a great job of forcing him to his right and simply playing heavy to his left hand. Russo's emergence allowed Massessa to move back to his more natural position of LSM where is also played very well.

Knobloch is the real deal and I saw it firsthand coaching against him in HS. A very good player who looks to have carved out a niche for himself as a freshman.

The day, however, belonged to the Kirst's who were simply awesome today.

@Golfer2019 makes a great point that these kids have sacrificed a lot to get to play and we need to recognize guys like Kammish and Coyne (who started his career at attack at Rutgers) for willingly moving to SSDM to make this team even tougher to deal with.
@rufamily good to see you post...I hope you and the family are well! I hope ours paths cross this spring...sooner than later...be well!
 
I watched the game again. I was curious how we kept them to single digits scoring so I focused on the D. They averaged a whopping 17 goals last season. Yea, some of that is Ament being gone but they have recruited very well. The offense is going to get better and better the more these kids gel with Connor. On D, we really were exceptional. Our slides were timed perfectly, something that has been missing. A huge shout out to our short stick d middies. For those that don't know, these kids get picked on like cornerbacks in a passing game. It's the easiest entry level to creating scoring chances. Our shorties were exceptional. We got beat outright for 1 goal. Beyond that, they got groundballs (Kamish with 2 huge ones that we needed during winning time) and just as impressively, cleared the ball like hell.

The few times things did breakdown, Colin Kirst was a wall. His outlet passes were incredible. Not an easy thing in cold weather and certainly a huge piece of triggering what we want to.


If I am scouting this team, you obviously keep attacking shortsticks, but if they are this tough to run by, it makes everything else much harder. Our longsticks were very good too. The communication and timing on the slides were just top level. We created a ton of turnovers because of it.

It was a big TEAM win. Lotta hands in this one. I am sure the staff is ecstatic because of it.

On to OSU which is a VERY tough place to play, but we have had some success there. One of the few programs that have.
 
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I watched the game again. I was curious how we kept them to single digits scoring so I focused on the D. They averaged a whopping 17 goals last season. Yea, some of that is Ament being gone but they have recruited very well. The offense is going to get better and better the more these kids gel with Connor. On D, we really were exceptional. Our slides were timed perfectly, something that has been missing. A huge shout out to our short stick d middies. For those that don't know, these kids get picked on like cornerbacks in a passing game. It's the easiest entry level to creating scoring chances. Our shorties were exceptional. We got beat outright for 1 goal. Beyond that, they got groundballs (Kamish with 2 huge ones that we needed during winning time) and just as impressively, cleared the ball like hell.

The few times things did breakdown, Colin Kirst was a wall. His outlet passes were incredible. Not an easy thing in cold weather and certainly a huge piece of triggering what we want to.


If I am scouting this team, you obviously keep attacking shortsticks, but if they are this tough to run by, it makes everything else much harder. Our longsticks were very good too. The communication and timing on the slides were just top level. We created a ton of turnovers because of it.

It was a big TEAM win. Lotta hands in this one. I am sure the staff is ecstatic because of it.

On to OSU which is a VERY tough place to play, but we have had some success there. One of the few programs that have.
I've watched it again as well (after I watched the Loyola v UVA game)...

Can't argue any of your points...it was a great team win...

A couple comments...RU has practiced as much if not more than anyone in D1...these kids have worked hard...very hard

The Big Ten is a bitch...it's just starting...it's a marathon, not a sprint...I think our depth is gonna help us...I'm not speaking of AC or Kieran...but overnight, we got old...and experienced...which is good...especially when your talking about key, unsung positions like defense and SSDM...you lose games when your young in those positions...were now old all over the place...we've got a couple young guys in 27 and 5...but they can be more effective because eyes are fixed on 1 and 4 and 8 and 0 and 34...lots of experience ...overnight, we are old...experienced...mature...men...that matters...in a good way

We need to be lucky with covid...yes, lucky...because you can pull a positive test and be fine...and in a short season...your out at least four weeks...that hurts...we need to keep our fingers crossed...

Finally...two years ago I watched ourvteam roll into the horseshoe and pound a ranked OSU team...I'll be there next week in person...and I expect our guys to repeat that performance...I'm not sold on OSU...

Cheers...I'm drinking tonight!
 
Didn't watch the whole game, but from what I did thought Jean- Felix played well. Wondered what others thought.
 
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Didn't watch the whole game, but from what I did thought Jean- Felix played well. Wondered what others thought.
Stats say 4 ground balls.

How big is he? Looked large on the Instagram pics.
 
He played very well. The whole D did. He’s a big strong kid. He’s listed at 6’2” 210. I’d say that’s accurate.

Russo looks to have put on some serious muscle. He looks jacked too. This squad has put in a lot of work. That much is obvious.
 
This may be stating the obvious, but if Kirst stays at attack this may be the best attack unit in the country.
 
Unrelated, but #13 Army is taking it to #4 Syracuse. 15-10 in the 4th

Syracuse was up 6-1 and now are down 16-11 mid 4th
Update: 18-11 final
 
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This may be stating the obvious, but if Kirst stays at attack this may be the best attack unit in the country.
They will only get better as the gel more and more. Thing is you can play Connor anywhere. The kid might be the most versatile player in all of college. We also have some other guys we can plug in that spot if you have him run out of the box. I love how versatile this whole team is. Our middies are all two way players save a couple. The offensive guys can play D and the D mids can all play offense.
 
Unrelated, but #13 Army is taking it to #4 Syracuse. 15-10 in the 4th

Watched the first half. Syracuse took a 6-1 lead in the 1st. They have one hell of a midfield, and the Army's slides were late if they happened at all. Made a defensive adjustment in the 2nd qtr., the slides came much quicker and you can see the result.
 
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