Look for plenty of Michigan/Detroit preview material on the site tomorrow, but for now, rounding up everything else in the Great Lax State. As always, news tips, press releases, commitments, etc. can find the inbox on Twitter or via e-mail.
Division-1
This is a semi-old article (it previews Detroit’s game against Mercer), but I’m a sucker for mainstream media coverage of the sport. Props to the Oakland Press.
The in-state battle headlines the Detroit area’s sporting excitement for the week, per the Detroit Sports Commission.
Press release on Thomas Paras and Jeff Chu being named Michigan’s captains.
Detroit coach Matt Holtz took to the airwaves last week to speak with 105.1’s Matt Dery.
Not to be outdone, Michigan coach John Paul had his weekly appearance on Ann Arbor’s WTKA last week and this morning.
Tempo-Free Lax is (finally) live for the 2014 season. Thanks to some issues with the NCAA’s stats site – the same thing that prevented TFL from going up until now – not all games that have been played are in there, but it should be worked out in the next couple days.
Division-3
A preview of the Kalamazoo College women’s team. The Hornets will be playing their first year as a varsity Division-3 squad.
Recruiting
Ann Arbor Skyline 2016 midfielder Zack Schwartz committed to Michigan. He plays club with True Lacrosse, and a full writeup is pending on their site. According to IL, he’ll take a postgrad year and join Michigan’s 2017 class.
Another in-stater for Michigan in Warren De La Salle 2017 attack Erik Schmidt. He plays with 1763 Lacrosse club.
West Ottawa 2014 defenseman Ian Ryan committed to Ithaca college.
Gear Posts
Central Michigan sporting some new gloves for the 2014 season:
CMU mittens.
Michigan has also switched to Cascade CPX-R helmets, which is apparently a big deal. The Wolverines were going to sport them against Mercer, but couldn’t get the final details hashed out. Look for them tomorrow against Detroit.
High School
Brother Rice comes in at No. 45 on StudentSports Lacrosse‘s preseason Fab50 for high school teams. The Warriors will certainly be a team to watch as they see what life without Coach Ambrose is like.
Grow the Game
A semi-interesting tweet from Mike Dyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer, talking about the possibility of Ohio’s High School governing body to sanction the sport.
Illinois’s governing body will not sponsor that state’s tournament, either, an apparent source of disappointment.
While the Illinois situation seems to be a bit different (they’re all club teams without school support, if the quotes in the article are to be believed), I still think both states are in a situation where they should be careful what they wish for.
Since Michigan’s high school lacrosse has been sponsored by the official governing body, the quality of play has gone downhill in the Great Lax State – and been lapped by those two states, in particular. Some of that is coincidence (or at the very least not a product of a causal relationship there), but some of it is on account of really bad rules from the MHSAA. While I don’t know for certain if Ohio and Illinois would see similar issues with stats approval, gaining sponsorship is far from a panacea when it comes to growing the game.
Job Openings
Walled Lake Western is looking for a JV Coach.
Lacrosse Tonight
Since there’s only one game on the schedule, a special shoutout to the Oakland/UM-Flint women’s game at Country Day tonight at 9 p.m. Try to make it out, if you can.