BALTIMORE, Md. - The 2012 men's lacrosse season kicks off on Saturday evening for nationally ranked \#11 Endicott and \#7 RIT on Saturday evening at Harvard University. While the atmosphere at Harvard's Soldiers Field is guaranteed to be electric with this early season match up of lacrosse powerhouses, the benefits of playing in a recruiting hotbed such as the Boston area could pay massive dividends when acceptance letters get mailed out.
Jac Coyne and Joel Censer from Lacrosse Magazine highlight in a March 1st posting on laxmagazine.com that it is becoming commonplace for NCAA Division III programs to use neutral site competition as a means for visiting parts of the country that small-sized travel budgets do not normally allow.
There are five games being played this Saturday up and down the east coast that feature neutral site competition. Below are Coyne's and Censer's takes on the outcome of \#11 Endicott vs \#7 RIT on Saturday, March 3rd at 6:00 pm at Harvard's Soldiers Field.
Courtesy of Jac Coyne/Joe Censer from Lacrosse Magazine
No. 7 RIT (0-0) vs. No. 11 Endicott (0-0) – Saturday, 6 p.m. (at Cambridge, Mass.)
COYNE: Time will tell just how many recruits are lured in by this game, but that aside, I think it's time for my first upset of the weekend. RIT is going to be a player for both the Liberty League AQ as well as an at-large spot, but they are replacing key players from every level of the field – Bob Tonnessen in net, MJ Kiekebelt at LSM, Jordan MacIntosh in the midfield and Kelso Davis on attack. I'm not sure if it's reasonable to expect them to find cohesion amongst the newbies in the first outing.
Plus they are going against an Endicott squad that RIT head coach Jake Coon aptly described as "scrappy." The Gulls certainly have a couple of holes to fill on their end, but Sean Quirk seems to churn out these hard-nosed, cookie-cutter kids every season to fill the void. I'll take Endicott in an oddly lopsided game, 14-9.
CENSER: RIT will be the favorite in the Liberty League. Tyler Russell can fill it up with the best of them, and their entire starting defense returns.
But Jac sugarcoated the Tigers's graduation losses. Kiekebelt, MacIntosh, Davis and Iric Bressler will go down as some of the best players to don the Orange, Black and White.
While Endicott had their fair share of rebuilding to do too (defensemen Robert Crossett and Andrew Pochebit, and attackman Jack Curtis among others), they still return some legit offensive weapons and face-off technician Sam Ozycz (65%).
At "Hahvahd," we'll find out if the Tigers are built to last. RIT in a bruising slugfest, 11-9.
