Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Friday, July 1, 2005

VAIL LACROSSE SHOOTOUT ELITE DIVISION – DAY ONE

ROCK-IT POCKET 11 – TEAM GUTTMAN 6

ROCKY

We won today and will enter tomorrow's 9:00 a.m. game against the JAMMIN' SAMMIN' as a major "dog", as in underdog.   We are our 2005 version of Rocky.  We are the little team that might. We get a shot to play a team that has won the title in the past and they are the third seed here at this year's Shootout.  They will be very athletic, much more so than the team we played today.  We have played Jammin' Sammin' several times before, and it has yet to end up pretty for us.

Today we handled a team made up of mostly Middlebury players past and present, and kept them at bay all day.  They chased. That's the way uh huh, uh huh, I like it

We had played Team Guttman a few times before up here in Vail.  We hadn't beaten them until today.

ADRIAN!!!!

I like this team we got here.  We played well today, and if we can for once build on that for tomorrow, rather than having all of them (players) going to bars to discuss how good (well) we played until the wee hours or whatever.  If they would just go to bed relatively early and think about how to perpetuate more of the sort of instant connection and chemistry that happened today, then maybe we can give this team a decent game tomorrow.

WE BE JAMMIN'

The original Jammin' Sammin' was a team that came here from the great state of Washington to represent the best lacrosse players from that Northwest geographic area.  Their motto was the Salmon motto, "Spawn and die".  That is part of tournament history.  My guess is that most of this year's edition of the team has never been to the state of Washington.  It is something akin to a mismonikor, as in something like the Utah Jazz.  Yeah, when I think of Utah, I think of jazz.

CLUBBER GANG

There is some personal human drama for me here, as one of our captains and five of our players are from one of our (CSU) chief rivals, UCSB, that is the University of California at Santa Barbara.  Remember them, they won our MDIA championship this year.

This little exercise is great for me, the old hater.  It is really fun to team up with them, some Gauchos, and to see how our group blended today, just like peas and carrots.

Another core of our team is comprised of CSU alumni, and then there are several current CSU players as well.

GOWCHO, GOWCHO

By the way, I really wanted to congratulate these Gauchos on their 2005 MDIA championship when I met them, because that is how I feel.  I couldn't bring myself to say it, though.  I probably never will be able to either in light of everything that has taken place.  It's not their (UCSB) fault that we were a no show.  .  Whatever.

HORSES

Oh yeah, then we got these other two guys from Division I Ohio State (my father's alma mater). Lance Vitt (#16 A) is back with us for the third or fourth time, and this time he brought with him his Buckeye Buddy, Craig Nolan (#7 A), and these two bring us something extra, dare I say something we have not had before, which is that we are somewhat capable of looking dangerous on offense, or at least we did today.  Neither one of these player actually started at OSU, but they are starting for us, and I'm real pleased they are.

DUELING LONG POLES

I had some concern coming here with 12 or so long poles on our roster.  You don't need twelve.  Six is plenty for the most part.  However, that was really no big thang for me to deal with compared to the fact that we had arguably the two best long poles in the MDIA over the past 5 years on the team, and I was worried if there was enough of this one position to handle two of them at the same time.  To compound the problem, one of them was my little Plonkey, and anyone that knows me knows that I am at all times fully prepared to live and die riding on the back of this particular horse.

So, what happened today?  Thankfully a quick and natural evolution took place.  Both Plonkey and his SB counterpart, Damon Conklin-Moragne (#8 LSM)were in the game at the same time and working together within minutes of the first face off.  Damon made a hit with his substantial body early in the game, one that sent a clear message to the opponent.  Welcome to the family, Damon.

I like this team already as I said.  I could sit here and write about the variety of personalities on it all night, but we have a 9:00 game.  It is already 11:00 tonight.  I gotta go.  This will be totally unedited, so basically this is garbage straight from the horse's mouth.  I want to get something "up" tonight before whatever happens tomorrow changes all of my thought patterns by 10:30 a.m.  I could write about Harper, Ferrin, Roth, and all my old boys because they were great today.  Hopefully tomorrow will be an encore.  By the way, I think we used 32 players today in a game that basically had no garbage time.  To me this is a good omen. Most teams up here probably use 18 or 20 at the most.

Our defense was excellent today.  They shared the duties with each other and they allowed the goalie (Alex Smith # 26) to make solid saves, one after the other.  We actually ran two full defense lines, something I can't remember ever doing, and it worked well.  Our defense was fresh all game, and I thought they wore the Guttmen down.

Win, lose, or lightning, and we had a lightning delay today, if we play with the emotion we did today, I will be happy.  On the other hand I think I know what would make me really happy.  I want to go someplace on Sunday that I have never been before.

Good night. 

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