Author: Matt

The North American Lacrosse League has added two new teams to their league for the upcoming 2013 season. One of the new teams, the Rhode Island Kingfish, will join the league and play in the Boss Ice Arena at the University of Rhode Island.

The Kingfish didn’t previously have a rink they called home, forcing the team to play many games on the road in the past. Upon joining the NALL, the Rhode Island squad met with Tracy Picente, manager of the Boss Arena. “[The Kingfish] actually approached me [about playing at Boss Arena],” she said. “They didn’t have a home rink and played a lot on the road last year. We met several times and I thought it would be a great opportunity.”

Despite being new to the league, the Rhode Island Kingfish are ready to compete. Since they were an expansion team, the Kingfish were allowed to protect five players from free agency. Evan Roberts and Zach Smith were kept from the original roster, both to help solidify draw control and the transition game. Two attackmen were kept as well, Dan Hettler and Mike Nadler. The Kingfish decided to only grab one defensive player, however, and chose Zach Taylor. All five players have solid experience, some international as well, and will emerge as a strong core for the team.

Through the NALL supplemental draft, the Kingfish were able to complete their 2013 roster. In addition to their eighteen original draft picks, the Kingfish were awarded seven additional picks. With their first selection, and number one overall, the Kingfish selected Michael Maggio to add additional offensive depth.

As the Kingfish continue to prepare for their inaugural season, fans in the Rhode Island area, including URI students, can begin to buy tickets for the games at Boss Arena. Tickets are currently available on the Kingfish website, http://www.rhodeislandkingfish.com, and start at $11 for student tickets. General admission seating will run $15.50 per ticket, while premium seating is $21.50.

The Kingfish will kick off their season on January 6th, at their new home, Boss Ice Arena.

Proving to be another sign that the sport of lacrosse is continuing to grow in the U.S., the NCAA has announced that their Division II tournament will double in size in 2013.

Adding on an additional four teams for 2013, the DII tournament doubles from the original four team style we saw prior to the change. Teams qualifying for the tournament will now be split into two bracket regions, north and south. The two teams winning their respective regions will then take part in the national championship game.

Team selections will also be influenced by a rating percentage index, which is new for the 2013 season. This will give the selection process a style more like that used in Division I lacrosse.

The increase in teams reaching the tournament is easily justified. In the 2007-08 season, NCAA Division II lacrosse only had 34 participating teams. For the 2013 season, however, 50 teams will take the field. You can imagine we’ll be seeing another increase in the not so distant future, as more and more universities begin fielding teams for Division II lacrosse.

The Duke women’s lacrosse team got all dressed up late last month for their annual Halloween costume party. The ladies in the junior class chose to dress up as The Little Rascals, but unfortunately it was done in poor taste when Taylor Virden painted her face black to portray Buckwheat.

All of this may have gone under the radar however, if it weren’t for the photo being posted on the university’s official athletic website, GoDuke.com. In a blog post written by another junior, Emma Tucci, the photo was shared with the world. Since then, the photo was changed to not include Virden, and was later removed all together.

Kirsten Kimel, head coach of the Duke women’s lacrosse team released a statement about the incident. “The Duke Women’s Lacrosse program celebrates Halloween with an annual gathering,” Kimel said. “This year, some of our costume choices were insensitive and entirely inappropriate. No offense was intended, but that does not matter because we should have realized how these choices would be viewed by those outside of our program. On behalf of our coaching staff and our student-athletes, we apologize to anyone we may have offended and understand while we believed we were making decisions in good fun, we should have been much more sensitive to the implications of our actions.”

The coaches and staff had no further comments on the situation. While the original photo from Tucci’s blog post has since been removed, it can be seen in the captured screenshot below.

As we get closer to the start of the 2013 lacrosse season for many universities in the U.S., the full schedules for those teams begin to come out. Such was the case yesterday where the University of Michigan announced their 2013 lacrosse schedule.

Michigan, who won three consecutive national championships at the Division I club level from 2008 to 2010, had a rough start in their inaugural NCAA Division I campaign. In their 2012 season, the Wolverines only claimed one victory, a 14-4 triumph over Mercer. They finished the season with a dismal 1-13 record, but managed to grow as a team in their first season in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Lacrosse League.

Fortunately for the Wolverines, their first season in the ECAC was as an affiliate. This means that all games played last season did not count towards the ECAC standings for Michigan or their opponent. Michigan was also ineligible for the ECAC tournament last season as an affiliate.

Beginning with the 2013 season, the University of Michigan will no longer be an affiliate in the ECAC. Their games will count, and the squad should be prepared to compete better than last season. See below for a full look at their 2013 schedule.

Sat. Feb. 2 vs. Marquette (Exh.) Oosterbaan Field House 1:00 p.m. ET
vs. Denison (Exh.) Oosterbaan Field House 4:30 p.m. ET
Sat. Feb. 9 vs. Penn State Oosterbaan Field House 1:00 p.m. ET
Sat. Feb. 16 at Bellarmine Louisville, Ky. 1:00 p.m. ET
Sat. Feb. 23 at Johns Hopkins Baltimore, Md. 1:00 p.m. ET
Sat. Mar. 2 vs. Army Miami, Fla. (Sun Life Stadium) Time TBA
Wed. Mar. 6 at High Point High Point, N.C. 7:00 p.m. ET
Sat. Mar. 9 at Hobart * Geneva, N.Y. 1:00 p.m. ET
Thu. Mar. 14 at Fairfield * Fairfield, Conn. 7:00 p.m. ET
Sun. Mar. 17 vs. Colgate Flushing, N.Y. (Citi Field) Time TBA
Sat. Mar. 23 vs. Loyola Maryland * Michigan Stadium 3:00 p.m. ET
Sat. Mar. 30 vs. Air Force * Michigan Stadium 3:00 p.m. ET
Sat. Apr. 6 at Delaware Newark, Del. 12:00 p.m. ET
Sat. Apr. 13 vs. Ohio State * Michigan Stadium Time TBA
Wed. Apr. 17 vs. Detroit Michigan Stadium 7:00 p.m. ET
Sat. Apr. 20 vs. Saint Joseph’s Michigan Stadium 1:00 p.m. ET
Sat. Apr. 27 at Denver * Denver, Colo. 1:00 p.m. MT

* = ECAC Games

McGill University, located in Montreal, has won the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association championship after defeating Western University 7-6 in double overtime on Sunday.

Jishan Sharples, a co-captain from Vancouver, scored the game winning goal for McGill with only twelve seconds remaining in double overtime. The goal, which came on a wraparound, gave McGill their first Baggataway Cup win.

While the 7-6 victory for McGill came in double overtime, there were some hot and cold moments for scoring during the game. After the first quarter, Western lead 2-1 on goals from Ryan McCrory. In the second quarter, Scott Watson scored to add to the Western lead, 3-1. McGill picked up a goal each from Ryan Besse and Leland De Langley to tie the game 3-3, but Western’s Kyle Childerhorse scored to give his squad the lead again 4-3 heading into the final quarter.

The fourth quarter opened strong for McGill, as they picked up three straight goals to take a 6-4 lead. Scott Watson would add a goal to bring Western within one, and Sam Neeb added the equalizer with only six seconds left to play, sending the game to overtime.

Overtime between McGill and Western was held scoreless. It wasn’t until close to the end of the second overtime that Jishan Sharple’s heroics would give McGill the Bagattaway Cup victory.

“It’s really difficult to put what this means into words,” said tournament MVP Brandon McLean, who helped send McGill to the gold medal game after scoring the winner with four seconds left in Saturday’s 9-8 semifinal victory over Guelph. “It was really a team effort. We worked so hard to get here and it’s paid off. I think it will take a while to sink in what we accomplished.”

McGill’s victory marks the sixth time, in as many seasons, that the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association championship has gone to a different team.

The NCAA announced on Thursday that Towson University will host the Women’s Lacrosse National Championships in 2014.

Towson University, located in Towson, Maryland, will be the host university for the fourth time in a seven year time span. They first hosted the event 2008 and followed it up with two additional years in 2009 and 2010.

Proving to be a tremendous host for the event, the National Championships at Towson set new attendance records in the three consecutive years hosting the event. In fact, the most recent record set in 2010 saw nearly 10,000 fans in attendance for the championship game between Maryland and Northwestern at Unitas Stadium.

“Towson University is excited to bring an outstanding event like the women’s lacrosse national championship back to Baltimore,” said Mike Waddell, Towson’s director of athletics. “Our campus has hosted this event three of the last five years. Once again, we will roll out the red carpet for the NCAA and many fans that will help us sell out Johnny Unitas Stadium as we create and outstanding environment for the championship weekend.”

The 2013 Women’s National Championships will take place at Villanova University on May 26th.