Photo Credit: Ken Chaney

The Drexel men’s lacrosse team suffered a crushing last-second defeat Feb. 16 to the No. 7 University of Virginia Cavaliers by a score of 11-10.

The Dragons started the game on a sour note, falling behind 2-0 within the first six minutes, but rebounded to end the first quarter with a 4-3 lead. They entered halftime down 6-5, but throughout the first half the team displayed solid defense, the likes of which they were lacking last season. The only exception came at the end of the half, when Drexel allowed Virginia to score two goals in less than two minutes and effectively recover momentum.

Sophomore Will Gabrielsen started the game in the net and performed fairly well in his half of play, allowing six goals on 11 shots. After allowing six goals in the first half, Drexel head coach Brian Voelker made a goalie switch to the rusty-looking sophomore Cal Winkelman to begin the third quarter.

Winkelman looked nervous at times in his first 10 minutes of play, which led to three quick Virginia goals. He recovered as the game went on, only allowing two goals in the final 20 minutes of the game and keeping the team in it with some impressive saves. When he was asked about the switch, Voelker described his strategy for goalie management and the performance of Winkelman in particular, who made eight saves on 13 shots on goal.

“Both of those guys played last year, both had a good preseason and we thought both deserved a chance,” he said. “Coming into the game, we told them they were both going to play halves and Cal really had a great second half. He really stepped up and made some great saves.”

The Dragons had come out of the locker room for the third quarter screaming and enthused about “shocking the country,” but they appeared to exhaust all their energy on the entrance, saving little for the game itself.

They had maintained steady offensive pressure in the first half, taking the pressure off their defense to slow a very good Cavaliers attack. In the third quarter, however, the attack ceased being effective.

Drexel was not as composed following the break, turning the ball over more than in the first half. Virginia took advantage of the increased possession and scored three straight goals, extending their lead to 9-5.

With three minutes left in the third quarter, the Dragons recovered the energy they lost after halftime and began their comeback. Two quick goals by senior Nick Trizano and redshirt freshman Cole Shafer swung the momentum to the Dragons’ side and paved the way for a comeback.

For much of the fourth quarter, the game was tied at 9-9, and the back-and-forth between the teams was aggressive and tense. Virginia broke the stalemate with a goal by Mark Cockerton with 2:56 remaining in the game.

Not to be outshone, Trizano responded 59 seconds later with a goal of his own, leaving the score tied at 10-10 with less than two minutes to play. Drexel proceeded to win the faceoff and had a good chance at scoring, before a turnover in front of the net allowed Virginia a chance at having the last offensive possession.

On the ensuing possession, Cockerton once again showed his clutch abilities for the Cavaliers as he scored an unassisted goal coming from behind the net with only 15 seconds to play. While the Dragons put up a fight in the remaining time, there simply was not enough of it.

Losing by one to Virginia for the third year in row might seem crushing, but the results are not nearly as discouraging as they seem. The unranked Dragons gave the No. 7 Cavaliers a run for their money, right down to the final seconds.

Another notable aspect of the game was the defensive improvement over last year. In 2013, Drexel gave up 13 goals to a similar Virginia team, and overall the defense and goalie play seemed more composed than it did at most points last year. The only exception was a poor third quarter, but the Dragons quickly turned things around.

With that said, the Dragons have things to work on. The team is difficult to score on when their offense dictates time of possession, but when Virginia had the ball, they sometimes seemed able to score at will. This could be problematic for the Dragons against a team with an overwhelming defense — like Colonial Athletic Association rival The Pennsylvania State University. They may be unable to take pressure off of their own defense, as they were for the 10-minute stretch in the third quarter in which the Cavaliers scored three goals.

A few Dragons stood out among a multitude of impressive performances, namely Shafer and junior Nick Saputo. Shafer netted four goals and appears poised to take the helm as the team’s main offensive force for the year. Besides having incredible hair, Saputo is notable for his faceoff record, winning 19 of 25 against Virginia. He was one of the primary reasons why Drexel was able to stay in the game.

Though the loss was disappointing, the players can keep their heads high with optimism for the rest of the season and with pride in their ability to keep up with any team in the nation. After the game, Nick Trizano seemed impressed with his team’s performance.

“We came out, we played hard, and we stuck with them the whole time, and you can’t ask for much more than that,” he said. “We really played well today.”

The Dragons play their next game Feb. 22 at the No. 11 University at Albany, State University of New York.

The post No. 7 Virginia stuns men’s lacrosse in final seconds appeared first on The Triangle.

Faceoff specialists Nick Saputo and Deven Thomas will take the majority of the draws this season for Drexel. In 2013, the two combined to win 213 out of 394 faceoffs, good for a 54.1-percent mark on the year.

The Drexel men’s lacrosse team kicks off its season Feb. 15 at Vidas Field against the No. 7 University of Virginia Cavaliers.

Virginia is looking to bounce back strong from a 7-8 season last year and they have already won close games against Loyola University Maryland and the University of Richmond. Yet they only managed to beat Richmond by a single goal, which is interesting considering it was Richmond’s first ever men’s Division I lacrosse game. This seems to bode well for Drexel, as it appears Virginia may be starting the year slowly despite its undefeated record.

However, if history is any indication, this Virginia team is not to be taken lightly early in the season. The Cavaliers started last year strong, going 5-1 in their first six games before the middle of their season brought them up against steep competition, including the eventual NCAA champion Duke University Blue Devils.

The Dragons and Cavaliers face off every year to start the season, and this pairing has been decidedly negative for Drexel as of late. The Blue and Gold haven’t pulled out a victory in their annual opening day matchup with Virginia since 2007.

Though the head-to-head record is strongly skewed toward the Cavaliers’ side, the results haven’t been quite so one-sided. The last two matchups have ended as one-goal games and last year’s competition required overtime play to decide the winner. Drexel must be itching to pull out a victory and start off its season with an impressive win against a good team.

After last year’s fairly successful — but ultimately disappointing — season, the Dragons almost certainly have a chip on their shoulder to show the lacrosse world what they can do and start their quest to finally win the CAA Championship and make the NCAA Tournament.

They also need to work to fill the hole left by graduated attacker Robert Church, who led the team in scoring last year. In an interview with The Triangle, head coach Brian Voelker described the team’s approach to fill this void.

“You’re probably not going to have one person make that up,” Voelker said of the team’s offense-by-committee approach. “We have some young guys at the attack that have done a good job, and Cole Shafer is probably the immediate guy that will play the way Robert did.”

He also went on to describe the role of preseason second team All-American Ben McIntosh as exceedingly important. McIntosh was drafted by the Denver Outlaws in the Major League Lacrosse draft this year and plans to enter the league when eligible.

The Dragons are currently unranked in the national polls and start the season with four of their first five games coming against ranked teams. If they manage to escape this stretch of record winning three or more games, they likely will find themselves ranked, as they were for most of last season.

Voelker also stated that he thinks the team has a chip on its shoulder this season due to the fact that the players feel like they’re being underrated in the preseason rankings. Junior midfielder Ryan Belka feels the same way.

“We want to come out and prove to people that we are good enough,” Belka said when asked about his team’s preseason rankings. He and McIntosh both reiterated that the team’s goal for the season is to win the CAA and make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history.

But all and all, the fact that the lacrosse world doubts the team isn’t something they are worrying about, as Drexel hopes to have made improvements to the weak aspects of their game. The Dragons will continue to start goalie Cal Winkelman, and their defense only lost two seniors from last year, meaning that their defensive core will likely be the same players as last year.

As their defense and goalie play constantly interfered with their ability to win games last year, Drexel’s main problem potentially could plague the team again this year. The upside? The defense is older and more experienced, specifically Winkelman, who is now has a year of college play under his belt.

The team starts the year against stiff competition in undefeated Virginia, offensive juggernaut the University at Albany, State University of New York and No. 20 Villanova University in their first three games. Albany in particular seems to stand out as a potentially problematic opponent. They are ranked No. 10 in the nation and are coming off a year in which their offense was ranked first in the country in goals scored per game. If any team is going to expose the Dragons’ poor defense, it will be the Great Danes.

Within the CAA, the competition once again is stiff. The Pennsylvania State University wiped the floor with its competition last year, and Towson University also looks poised to make a run in the conference. Penn State ended the season 6-0 within the conference, winning the CAA in the regular season and advancing to the NCAA Tournament. The Nittany Lions are ranked No. 9 in the country and will be the main obstacle between the Dragons and an NCAA berth.

Last year in the first round of the CAA tournament, Towson defeated Drexel, who had garnered a No. 2 seed. Towson was inferior to Drexel throughout the regular season, but managed to put together a great game when it counted, ending Drexel’s season with an 11-8 victory.

The Dragons’ 2014 journey begins Saturday at Vidas Field at 1 p.m.

The post Men’s lax aims to silence doubters appeared first on The Triangle.

The Philadelphia 76ers’ Michael Carter-Williams drives to the basket against the Orlando Magic’s Victor Oladipo at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia Dec. 3.

On Nov. 27, the Philadelphia 76ers lost 105-94 to the Orlando Magic in a classic “someone HAS to win” game between two horrible teams.

Spencer Hawes missed this game because of left-knee soreness, and as it turns out, Metropolis without Superman is not a fun place to be. The Sixers shot 7-22 from downtown in the game, and that’s with Thaddeus Young (a 33.7-percent career three-point shooter) going 2-3. The Sixers without Hawes are like frozen pizza without pepperoni — an extraordinarily mediocre experience that could easily be improved with a simple addition. With that being said, there’s really no point in Hawes risking further injury to play in a meaningless game where a win is unfavorable, because the Magic, like the Sixers, are competing for positioning in next year’s draft.

Nikola “The Ghost of Andrew Bynum Trade Past” Vucevic (he was basically a throw-in player to sweeten the deal) followed the path set by most centers facing the Sixers and caused fits all over the court. He finished the game with 21 points, 16 rebounds, five blocks and thousands of crying Sixers fans distraught at the thought of what could have been. The Sixers could desperately use a rim-protecting big man to stop the onslaught they’ve faced from opposing centers — perhaps one with a flat top whose name rhymes with Perlens Poel?

On Nov. 29, the Sixers lost 121-105 to the New Orleans Pelicans, who had demolished them earlier in the year by 37 points.

As with so many of these games, the disappointment of the game was the defense, which allowed 121 points to a team that is below .500.

Anthony Davis and his unibrowed reign of terror over the Sixers are enough to haunt fans’ nightmares and keep them up at night. Davis finished the game with 22 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks, and those stats don’t even appropriately acknowledge the impact he had on the game, as his mere presence influenced the way the Sixers offense could flow.

If someone ever asks me, “Can you explain the Sixers’ season in a single offensive possession?” I now know exactly what play to point them to. In the fourth quarter of the game, James Anderson took a three-point shot. It seemed ordinary at the time, but it would turn out to be a feat of both human determination and stupidity. On that one possession, Anderson took three three-pointers from the same spot — following two offensive rebounds by Young — and missed all three of them. That’s about as “Sixers” as it gets, folks.

On the bright side, Evan Turner and Tony Wroten both had great games. Turner had one of those nights where he inexplicably can’t miss jump shots, resulting in 22 points on 15 shots and a 100-percent mark behind the three-point line. Wroten was simply unstoppable, slashing through the paint as though no one was there to contest him. The point guard finished the game 9-13 in a game where he needed to step up because Michael Carter-Williams was struggling.

A minor note here: The Sixers shot a dreadful 42.9 percent from the free-throw line in the game. The league AVERAGE is around 75 percent. So, yeah.

On Dec. 1, the Sixers lost to the up-and-coming Detroit Pistons 115-100.

In what is becoming an annoying trend, the opposing team’s big man torched the Sixers. Andre Drummond took some time off from his job as poster boy of Internet dating in order to score 31 points on 15 shots and collect 19 rebounds and six steals.

Carter-Williams continued to be startlingly inconsistent, shooting 30 percent in the game, finishing with 15 points and four turnovers. The only consistent part of Carter-Williams’ game is his defense, where he’s averaging almost three steals per game. That may not sound like an absurd amount, but Allen Iverson never averaged over 2.8 steals per game in his NBA career.

On Dec. 3, the Sixers defeated the Magic (this time lacking Vucevic) and snapped a four-game losing streak in dramatic fashion, winning 126-125 in double overtime.

The most notable stat in this game is that the Magic had a whopping nine bench points. They scored 125 points, and 116 of them came from the starting five. This included 26 points from Victor Oladipo, 33 from Glen Davis and 43 from Arron Afflalo.

Carter-Williams recorded the first triple-double of his career, with 27 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists on 11-19 shooting. Not to be upstaged, fellow rookie Oladipo also had a triple-double.

Defensively, the issues are the same, with the Sixers getting crushed by random players from every opponent. For some reason, the Sixers are constantly unable to defend the token “he’s still in the league?!” player from opposing teams. Previously it had been Caron Butler of the Milwaukee Bucks, and this time it was Davis.

In other news, the trade rumors are swirling around Turner. Teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Dallas Mavericks have expressed an interest in landing him, but the more likely suitor seems to be the Cleveland Cavaliers. A rumor emerged early last week about a possible trade that included Dion Waiters coming to the Sixers. I’m not completely against the trade if it includes a lottery-protected pick for next year’s draft, because Waiters is just not very good. Also, he has proven to be a bit immature and a tough teammate to get along with, starting fights with the lovable Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson.

Drexel music industry major David Bartler summed the season up nicely, saying, “Michael Carter-Williams has been a huge bright spot and is my current pick for Rookie of the Year. Assuming they continue to lose, they have a very good chance to build a great team around Carter-Williams in the draft.”

The Sixers are currently close to the worst record in the league, so it appears that the tank is officially in full swing and that the team will continue to lose to improve their 2014 draft picks. Also, the Pelicans are now 9-8, and the Sixers will get their first- round pick next year as a result of the Jrue Holiday trade as long as it isn’t in the top five picks, so root for them to lose as well, but not too much.

The post Sixers Spectrum Dec. 6: Rumors swirling appeared first on The Triangle.

Spencer Hawes of the Philadelphia 76ers steals the ball from Jeremy Lin of the Houston Rockets during the fourth quarter at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia on Nov. 13. The Sixers won in overtime, 123-117.

The Philadelphia 76ers fell to the Toronto Raptors 108-98 Nov. 20, and the score misleadingly implies that the game was a close one. Typically a subpar three-point shooting team (shooting 32.6 percent as a team before the game, a percentage that ranked 22nd out of 30 teams in the NBA), the Raptors were simply unconscious from downtown in the game, ending the game shooting over 48 percent from three-point range.

Offensively, the youth of the Sixers continues to bite them. In the game, the Sixers turned the ball over 21 times to Toronto’s 12. In his first game back since the San Antonio Spurs’ Nov. 11 dismantling of the Sixers, Michael Carter-Williams looked like the player he was expected to be. He’s a borderline elite defender due to his lankiness, instincts and effort level, but the man simply cannot shoot consistently. The most important aspect of this game: Spencer Hawes has somehow turned himself into an all-star caliber player. Hawes finished with 28 points in the game and 10 rebounds for yet another double-double.

The Sixers once again showed their resilience and incredible entertainment value Nov. 22 in a 115-107 overtime victory against the injury-depleted Milwaukee Bucks.

While this was a victory, it certainly was nothing to be proud of. The Sixers needed an overtime period to defeat a team that depends on veteran Caron Butler — who could have grown-up children at this point — and Nate Wolters for offensive output. If you look up “Nate Wolters highlights” on YouTube, the second video consists of highlights from a game where he put up a whopping nine points and four assists. When an offense depends on someone who scores nine points in his notable games, things aren’t good.

The Sixers had another 20-plus turnover game here, finishing with 26, including 15 in the first half. If they had played even an average NBA team, this most likely would have ended in an embarrassing loss. That being said — SPENCER HAWES?! Hawes hit a game-tying fadeaway three-pointer from the corner (in front of the Bucks’ bench) off one foot with less than one second left in regulation to send the game to overtime, where the Sixers dominated to get the victory. If rumors emerged that Hawes was spotted leaping tall buildings in a single bound and making locomotives feel inadequate in Metropolis, I wouldn’t doubt it for a second.

The team once again shocked the world Nov. 23, competing with the Indiana Pacers — a team predicted to be the biggest obstacle to the Miami Heat’s quest for a three-peat — for most of the game before a 106-98 loss.

In this game, the defense was the story. The Sixers somehow managed to overcome having James Anderson, Daniel Orton and Evan Turner shoot 4-18, 3-11 and 8-26 respectively. This was partially due to Carter-Williams doing his thing, shooting over 50 percent and scoring a career-high 29 points with six rebounds and seven steals. The defense forced 19 turnovers on a very good Pacers team and managed to avoid being embarrassed, as we’ve seen they sometimes can be.

So far this year, the Sixers are the worst in the NBA at three-point defense. They’ve allowed the most three-point attempts, the most three-pointers made and the highest three-point shooting percentage to opposing offenses.

The main problem with the Sixers defense right now is that the scheme requires double teams on opposing offensive players in the post due to the lack of a real shot-blocking presence in the paint. This allows opposing teams to simply pass the ball down into the post, wait for the double team, then pass the ball around the perimeter until the ball finds an open shooter.

Before overreacting to those seemingly horrifying statistics and their implication for the future, we need to remember that Nerlens Noel, the prized first-round pick from this year’s draft, is out indefinitely with an injury and should return to take the helm as the Sixers’ central shot-blocking force either later this year or next year. When Noel, who is an exceptional defender in the paint, makes his debut, he can take over the power forward position and be a strong presence in the paint when Hawes is inevitably traded. That should eliminate the need to double team in the post, allowing the wing defenders to stay closer to their assignments and most likely eliminating the three-point issues the Sixers are having.

Overall, the past three games seem to be par for the course with this team. They’re exciting, but they very often display their youth, inexperience and lack of talent. They can keep up with the best teams in the league but can also look clueless and lost on defense and lazy on offense for entire quarters. If you’ve been considering following the Sixers, you should do it. They’re absolutely bad, but they’re utterly unpredictable and almost always play hard to the whistle, which is all you can really ask of a team with such youth.

Turner summed up this team’s spirit very well when he told Philly.com, “We didn’t lie down and try to look around and see why we couldn’t win; we tried our best to win.” This statement embodies the type of spirit that resounds well with the Philadelphia fans and the type of environment that builds championship teams.

As Drexel legal studies major Dylan Cooper explained, “The future is bright, they have a coach that is instilling a philosophy both offensively and defensively that’s working, and the players are playing with effort that I haven’t seen from the team in years.”

If you’re one of the fans that’s fearful of all of these early victories and the impact they’ll have on next year’s draft lottery, relax. The team is 6-9 and currently has a negative point differential for the year, meaning they’re getting lucky and are overdue to lose even more than they have been. For the time being, enjoy the victories and brace yourself for the almost guaranteed losing streaks that will happen when general manager Sam Hinkie trades Hawes, Turner and Thaddeus Young for younger talent and even more draft picks.

The post Sixers Spectrum Nov. 26: Superman Hawes appeared first on The Triangle.