Detroit Preview: Marist

Detroit graces the turf of Titan Field for the first time this spring, and Coach Holtz’s charges will be looking to keep pace atop the MAAC when they face

Marist

This is more cute than frightening.

Noon March 24, 2012
Titan Field, Detroit
Live Stats. @GreatLaxState Twitter.

2012
3-2 (Losses to Maryland and Rutgers). #34 Laxpower.

Tempo-Free Profile

With five games in the books – including a wide range of competition levels – we have enough information about Marist to look only at this year’s stats when breaking down the team.

Thanks to being slightly better on faceoffs and slightly worse on clears, Marist has had the exact same number of possessions as the opposition. Despite a good record – and a single-goal loss to Rutgers – they are far less efficient than opponents. This is because Maryland turned them to dust.

Maryland applicability to Detroit is… limited. For our purposes, they’re more like a team that clears better, and faces off about the same. Excising the road loss to the Terps, Marist is actually far more efficient (.310) than their opponents (.269).

Offense

The Marist offense basically starts and ends with two juniors: miniature (5-7, 150) attackman Connor Rice and not-so-miniature (6-3, 183) attack/midfield Jack Doherty. Doherty has started every game at attack, so while he’s capable of sliding back to midfield, look for him there. Anyway, those two have combined for 33 points, equal to the output of every other Red Fox combined. Doherty is a finisher: 13 goals and three assists. Rice is more balanced, with nine goals and eight assists on the year.

Freshman Colin Joka has been the third member of the attack unit, but a relatively small part of the offense. He has three goals and zero assists on seven shots.

Freshman midfielder Mike Begley is third on the team in points with a grand total of six (4G, 2A), while juniors Evan Guarini and Jim Marks appear to be other offensive options with three and two goals, respectively (though Marks has also added a pair of assists). Freshman Drew Nesmith and junior Aedan Herman each have three points on the year, as well.

Defense

Senior Zach Baddalucco has to be one of the smallest dudes in Division-1 lacrosse at 5-4, and doesn’t exactly have prototypical defenseman size. Junior Ethan Fox (who, it should be noted, has a perfectly aligned name and mascot) and his classmate T.J. McDermott round out the starting defense. McDermott hasn’t done much of anything – a grand total of two caused turnovers and one ground ball in five starts – but Baddalucco is tied for the team lead in caused turnovers (with a paltry three) and both non-McDermott starters have double-digit GBs.

At LSM, senior Kevin DeFranco has been a standout for the Red Foxes. He leads the non-FOGOs with 17 ground balls, and has three caused turnovers. Mike O’Hagan is a starting shortstick defensive midfielder, but the third spot on the defensive midfield line has rotated a bit.

In goal, sophomore Craig Goodermote has played in all five games and started four of them. He is saving .519 of shots faced, and allowing 8.82 goals per game. Freshman Dave Scarcello has seen just over three quarters of action, and has not performed nearly as well (.385, 19.22GAA).

Special Teams

Junior Matt Dugan has taken all but four faceoffs for Marist this year, and he’s winning a decent .538 of draws (the Red Foxes have lost every faceoff that he didn’t take). He’s a pretty good option on draws, but if things go poorly for him, there aren’t many other options. He’s the type of guy who’s more apt to win them cleanly (he’s caused zero turnovers on the year(!)) than pop it out and battle for a 50/50 ball. He has two goals and an assist on four shots, so he’s willing to run on the fast break, as well.

In all games not against Maryland, Marist is clearing at approximately an equal rate to the opposition, so that shouldn’t be a huge factor against Detroit. With the Maryland game included, their clear starts to look worse, but the ride doesn’t look that much less successful.

Marist averages just over three penalties per game, while opponents are committing almost five. Against an aggressive team like Detroit, that difference may be amplified. Marist is cashing in on over half of man-up opportunities, so staying out of the box is an important goal (though an unlikely one for the Titans to achieve).

Big Picture

Every game in the MAAC is of the utmost importance for the Titans. They’re playing for a conference title and a shot at an NCAA Tournament berth. Protecting home field will be particularly important this season, since Marist and Siena – the primary competition for the conference title – will visit Titan Field.

Detroit has proven to be an aggressive team with an offense than can be explosive, but is very clearly going through a little bit of a growth phase as the team learns to play in a new offense with a different group of players on the unit.

Detroit Game preview. Coach Matt Holtz video preview:

Predictions

Marist is a super-important game for Detroit. Not only does a win keep the Titans atop the league, it knocks down one of the prime competitors for the crown ever-so-slightly. Because of that (and of course, the home opener factor), emotions may be running high, and it will potentially lead to some sloppy play.

• Detroit gets abused on faceoffs. Anybody who has been better than mediocre has been dominating the Titans for the most part, and that should continue against a pretty good specialist in Dugan.
• The Titan defense stands strong, and holds Marist below nine goals (their season average). As usual, there are a couple instances where risk-taking leads to an easy goal, but the risks pay off more often than they burn UDM.
• Detroit’s offense has the best one-two-punch in Matthews and Adams of anyone Marist has seen outside of Maryland. They should be able to put up some points. Continuing to develop the chemistry (and building a deeper group of producers, including midfielders Scott Drummond and Tim Lehto) will be the key to taking the next step.

Detroit is better than last year’s team, and although it seems like Marist has improved as well, the Titans have the boost of paying in front of a true home crowd for the first time this year. That’s the difference that they need to score the 12-8 victory.