It's complete!

Quick Post of the day! Short video of my new stick.

Bye Bye Gators

Over the weekend SRU men's club lacrosse traveled to Meadville, PA to finish out our fall playing the Gators of Allegheny College. We finished them off very quick scoring 5 goals and held them goalless the entire first half. They really didn't have any stick skills and most of their team had never played before so they didn't really have an idea to what they were doing. To add to all that they didn't have any subs so it was easy for us to just run the field on them and tire them out early on. They're only goal of the game came from a man-up situation after a questionable call from a referee at the end of the first half and we didn't want to start arguing with the refs since we were already in control of the game so we just let it go but other than that goal they came no where close to scoring. The game was slightly boring from my point of view because the ball was always on offense so I just stood there most the game but I got to beat their attackmen pretty well and an 11-1 win is always fun no matter what so I can't complain. But now that fall is over, that means it's time to hit the gym, bulk up, and run way more than I want.

The Herd

The Maryland Wild

Over the past few summers I have had the opportunity to to play for a club team in Maryland called the Maryland Wild. We have played in many tournaments and leagues over the past few years I've been apart of the team and we were even champions at the shore wars tournament in Ocean City 2 summers ago. We even have Buffalo Wild Wings as our sponsor so we always get some awesome black and gold uniforms with the Maryland flag on them. The last tournament we played this past summer was in Ocean City, Maryland where we were the youngest team to play by far. We were a team of college freshman and sophomores playing against college seniors and older. We held our own very well playing very close games but ultimately came out 2-3. The picture above was in a game last summer In Ocean City when I took a wrong angle on a ground ball and paid the price for it. Everyone loves to see a great picture of someone getting wrecked, and this time it just happened to be me.

Alumni who?

Over homecoming weekend we had some of the alumni from the lacrosse team come back to have the annual alumni game and to put it as simple as possible we destroyed them. Sadly we didn't have any goalies show up so we couldn't play a real 10 v 10 game, instead we just flipped the goals over and played triangles. If you don't know, the bottom of the lacrosse goal when flipped upside down is a triangle, so it makes it more difficult to score even without a goalie present. While the alumni struggled to keep up with us while running down the field our offense moved the ball very well to keep the defense on their toes, ultimately scoring on almost every possession. We even had one of the founders of the club team, which was founded over 40 years ago, come to watch us play and just talk to us. I wish the alumni better luck next year and know we'll still be coming guns blazing so be prepared. Lastly, just because my brother took this picture at the perfect time, here is a photo of me playing on my summer club team down in Ocean City, Maryland. I am the one with the white helmet, getting wrecked and next week I'll post the after picture, which is the best part.

New Elbows?

As I'm slowly building for the upcoming season by practicing and attaining new gear, one piece of equipment I really need to look at getting is a new set of elbow pads. I've been running with the same pair of elbow pads since my sophomore year of high school and needless to say they have seen better days. Velcro that once kept my pads nice and snug on my arm is now struggling to stay together, causing my pads so be lose and slide down my arm during play. Also with the level I am playing at now, I can't afford to be running around with old soft pads if I want to keep my elbows intact. Being a close defender I tend to wear arm pads that don't cover very much other than the elbow itself (like the ones below on the left) because we touch the ball much less than the other players and when we do touch the ball we're normally running as fast as we can to avoid getting checked. Now if I was dumb enough to to play attack or offensive middie I'd wear pads more like the ones on the right because they cover much more of your arm and they are a little harder than defensive pads so the checks aren't as painful when they do make contact.

Halfway there

I've finally got my new stick! well half of my new stick... Over break when I returned to Maryland I went on the search for a new pole and it turned out very successful. In my last few posts I gave a list of the sticks I was interested in looking at, but unfortunately many stores are lower on lacrosse gear right now since it is out of season, so I had to deal with what they had. The shaft I ended up settling on was the STX Surgeon Sc-Ti. The Surgeon is made out of a combination of Scandium and Titanium which account for it's strength and lightweight. Also, attached to the top of the stick, there is a head lock inside the shaft which will help stabilize the head. My last stick was starting to get really loose so this will help my new head stay on tight. It is also extremely strong, which is something I look for because when I throw a check, I tend to throw them very hard so I need a stick that will be able to withstand many beatings. Overall I'm very excited to break in this stick and lay wood on some short sticks.

Stop. Hammer Time.

STX Hammer U

Looking for a new shaft can be difficult because there are so many good ones out there to choose from, but when it comes to choosing what head to use, in my opinion there is only one top of the line defensive head. The STX Hammer U. This is what head I've used on my stick the past 3 years and I plan to keep using this head until they put something better out, because right now this is the head to have for close defense. I won't bore you with all the details, but my favorite thing about this head is how stiff it is. The guy in the video below shows how other heads can be easy to bend back and forth but the Hammer is near impossible to bend when you get it. The benefit to this is that it makes your slap checks, poke checks, and trail checks (and yes there are more) all harder so you have a better chance of getting the ball out, and who doesn't like causing the offensive player a little more pain? I could go on forever about how much I love this head but if you really want to learn more about it, watch the video below, he gives a great review on the head.