Detroit played a bad team, but unfortunately for both in-state schools this season, we’ve seen that doesn’t necessarily mean a win. UDM managed to take care of business against one of the consistent bottom-dwellers of college lacrosse, and there was much rejoicing.
Tempo Free
From the official box score, a look at the tempo-free stats:
| Manhattan 2016 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit | Manhattan | ||
| Faceoff Wins | 12 | Faceoff Wins | 4 |
| Clearing | 15-20 | Clearing | 14-15 |
| Possessions | 33 | Possessions | 24 |
| Goals | 9 | Goals | 3 |
| Offensive Efficiency | .273 | Offensive Efficiency | .125 |
UDM gave back some of a huge faceoff advantage by clearing pretty poorly, but Manhattan is quite bad indeed, thus the Titans were able to triple up the opposition.
Notes
It was a relative offensive explosion for the Titans, who struggled on that side of the ball in 2016. UDM scored just nine goals, sure, and a .273 offensive efficiency (accounting for a slower-paced game) isn’t exactly blowing the doors off, but only contests against Mercer and – oddly enough – a pretty good Marquette team saw better offensive outputs by this point in the season. More impressive was how they did it. Eight assists on nine goals is pretty good (albeit aided by a couple man-up tallies, but you score the goals you score, ya know?).
So who were the impressive performers? Alec Gilhooly led the way with two goals and two assists, Sean Birney had a goal and two assists, and Andy Hebden put in three scores. Lucas Ducharme and Kyle Beauregard has a goal and an assist each while Pat Walsh had two assists. It was a nice balance across the scoresheet, especially considering the season’s leading scorer, Mark Anstead, only needed to contribute one goal.
The turnover bug did hit (remain with, as it were) Detroit, though. That’s reflected partially in the clearing numbers, but 21 giveaways – only three forced by the Jaspers – is a weak all-around number. Cleaning that up is a major emphasis for next season, and will pay off in improved clearing numbers, as well.
Jason Weber had a very nice game between the pipes, getting back to his form from 2015 with three goals allowed while saving nine shots. Strength of competition enters into play, sure, but getting on the better side of the ledger however it’s done can’t be frowned upon. Backup goalie Connor Flynn made it in for two minutes of game time, facing just two shots and saving both.
Ben Gjokaj had a nice day on faceoffs, and while it was a dominating day basically all around (except in the transition game), he certainly helped to set the tone and give Detroit a possession advantage.
Detroit was sort of back to its old, aggressive ways, committing five penalties (though it didn’t pay off much in terms of turnovers forced), but the man-down was able to come through. A 2/2 mark on the man advantage gave the Titans the decided win in unbalanced play.
Elsewhere
Boxscore. Detroit recap. Manhattan recap. Game highlights.
Up Next
Detroit couldn’t capitalize on a strong start to MAAC play, with a few straight losses coming up.