The 2013 season is here and we wanted to work closely with college programs to bring a part of the excitement to you. Throughout the 2013 season we will highlight lacrosse programs on our space for all of our readers to follow. Player blogs serve as a unique outlet for programs to showcase their season as it develops, plus highlight everything they have to offer a student-athlete. In contrast, families and fans get a glimpse into the program’s athletic and academic regimen.
Benjamin Shapiro
Senior – #19 – Midfield
Colgate Lacrosse
Punta Colgate
After getting back in the win column against Holy Cross on Saturday, Sunday marked the beginning of our spring break from classes. The week gave us the opportunity to focus solely on lacrosse and get closer as a team. Also can’t forget the week gave us the opportunity to soak in the rays, as traditionally we have received good weather with the campus all to ourselves over spring break. Most importantly we had two games to focus on over the break, one at home against Binghamton and a highly anticipated affair with the Michigan Wolverines at Citi Field.
With a game on Tuesday against regional rival Binghamton we were back to work on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Hamilton to prepare for the Bearcats. We began the day with a film session finishing off the Holy Cross week. After film, Senior Will “ODB” Manning was awarded practice player of the week honors, while Matt Baker earned player of the game honors for his three goals against Holy Cross. The meeting was followed by a light practice to get us on our feet and acclimated with Binghamton’s personnel. Monday consisted of another light pregame practice that ended with Bill Manning breaking the team down. Bill called on us to start a new winning streak on Tuesday, and have a complete team effort. Rather than lifting we had a light stretch with Coach Andrew later in the afternoon, and to the teams pleasure we were still able to drink Muscle Milk (Mama’s Milk) after the workout.
Tuesday opened up with a shoot around in Sanford Field House followed by a pregame lunch at The Seven Oaks Clubhouse. Tuesday proved to be a rainy day at Andy Kerr Stadium, with game time set for 4 P.M. Similar to the Holy Cross game we opened up slowly but continued to grind down the Bearcats on to an eventual 12-5 victory. Pete “Tewey” Baum led the way with six goals, and was helped out by Connor Murphy who continued to ruin people’s day with his Nemesis head. Binghamton was a good challenge for us and we showed that we are continuing to improve after our two losses the week prior. All phases of our team had a good performance, which was indicative of the score.
Tuesday night gave us the opportunity to celebrate as a team and with some of the parents. Mr. Walsh was out in full force, along with The Brown family who could not stop talking about the upcoming game on St. Patrick’s Day, but more about that later. Wednesday morning came quickly with an 11 AM practice on Andy Kerr. We knew practice would be light, but Coach Murphy threw in a surprise as he had “Stallion Six on Six” on the practice plan. The barn was open as the stallions were excited to play with their teammates cheering them on. The Stallion defense proved to get the better of the offense. After listening to the sideline during the six on six one thing was clear, the starters need to stick to their jobs on the field because they simply were lost as a cheering section.
We practiced Thursday morning in a cold and snowy day, as we continued to prepare for The Wolverines. At night we gathered as a team to watch the Michigan Fairfield game on Fairfield’s live webcast. The webcast proved to be spotty at best, so during the internet connection interruptions we had ourselves a nice game of charades. After a loud chant Coach Murphy finally got up to act out a movie, but I guess his team knows him well because before he could even begin Derik Katchis called out the movie he was going to illustrate, “The Transporter”. We had another morning practice Friday with a dinner at Seven Oaks later in the night. After dinners a lot of the seniors got together to watch some Championship College Basketball, which proved to have some pretty exciting games. We left early Saturday morning for New York, and had a mid day practice on the grass fields of Hofstra in preparation for our game on grass the following day. The practice brought back memories for many of the long island guys of summer games on those fields, except this time we were practicing in the snow. After practice we headed to Citi Field to walk around the field and check out the facility. Safe to say everyone was pretty pumped to be on the field in the huge stadium. Some of the guys, myself included, checked out the out field walls and attempted jumping over the top to rob homeruns. Guys were able to take pictures and videos before Sunday where we would be in business mode.
I cannot forget to mention Senior Ryan Collins meeting up with us on Saturday for practice and on Sunday for the game. Ryan broke the team down after our pregame practice Saturday, which got everyone ready to play Sunday. Unfortunately, Ryan has been away from the team this season and it really meant a lot to the guys, and especially the seniors to see him in good spirits and with the team where he belongs.
With a 3 P.M. start time we were able to sleep relatively late on Sunday, and had an 11 A.M. breakfast at the hotel. We headed to the field with plenty of time to prepare and get ready for the game. We were sharing the visitor’s clubhouse with our fellow Patriot League members Holy Cross, so we had to use an auxiliary lockeroom for a little until the space cleared out. The environment was great at Citi Field, as there was a large crowd on hand to view the game. Most importantly a lot of alumni came down to watch the game, which always helps get the team going. After the pregame introductions where the starters were followed by youth lacrosse players on to the field, we were ready for action at Citi Field, with the game being aired on ESPNU. Similar to the last couple games, we got out to a slow start but slowly took the lead over The Wolverines. Michigan hung tough throughout the game, but we outlasted them and earned ourselves a 10-7 victory. Overall, it was not our best performance, but we came away with the win against a team that played tough for 6o minutes. Captain Jimmy Ryan had himself a nice homecoming with 2 lefty lasers. The game proved to be a great performance by our team, but other great performances were to come at the packed tailgate.
The tailgate at Citi Field was our biggest one yet, with tons of Alumni, family, and friends in attendance at the game. Once everyone was about done filling themselves with food, the performances started beginning with the Brown family band’s performance on St. Patrick’s Day. Annually the Brown’s put on a great performance on St. Patricks day, and this year did not disappoint. With Connor and his sister on the bagpipes, and Mr. Brown and Connor’s brother Sean on the drums, the Browns put on a great performance. Afterwards Mairead, Dennis Brown’s sister dazzled the crowd with an irish step dancing routine. The tailgate was capped off with a singing of happy birthday and a birthday cake for All County Brownie. Sunday was another great example of CULTA’s continued success on St. Patrick’s Day. While we may have not been able to go on a tropical spring break like many of our piers, we had a pretty memorable spring break of our own at Punta Colgate (credit to Matt Baker on the name).
-#19