2007 Lacrosse Champions!

I just returned from watching JHU win the NCAA Division I lacrosse championship game over Duke at M&T Bank Stadium. Hopkins played a great game, just handing it to Duke in the first half. Hopkins was up 10-4 at halftime and Duke was wandering around trying to figure out how it happened (hint: their goalie played like crap). Duke put on a pretty good run in the second half, eventually tying it at 11's before Hopkins scored in the last four minutes and then held off Duke for the rest of the game.

The last two minutes of defense from Hopkins was brilliant. They even had to play a full 1:00 of man-down defense, the goalie had some great saves, they just did not let Duke score by force of will alone. Really incredible, gutsy defense, the kind that wins championships. It was an exciting game and it was awesome to be present when your alma mater wins a national championship, I'm really glad I could be there.

On the other hand, it's a shame that the national sports media is acting so disappointed with the outcome. Just because the rape allegations against Duke players turned out to false doesn't mean that they are stand-up guys. But you read that AP article (the link above) and it's completely written from the standpoint of "look at this poor guys trying to have a come-back season after last year and mean ol' Johns Hopkins had the nerve to beat them." Come on, Hopkins was the underdog here. We were the #3 seed in the tournament, coaches polls at the end of the season had us as #5, Hopkins did a hell of a job getting to the championship game and upsetting Duke, the #1 seed. It could have been a story about the Hopkins team starting out at 4-4 and then ending the season at 13-4 with a national championship, but instead we had to hear about a bunch of guys who probably didn't sexually assault a stripper.

Why does every sporting event have to have some sort of drama behind it, why can't we just celebrate some guys playing some really good lacrosse?


PS - This is not to say that I think the JHU team is full of better guys than the Duke team. I mean, come on, half those guys probably went to high school together, they're essentially the same people. As much as I enjoy Hopkins dominating at lacrosse (hey, it's all we've got), I do admit that most lacrosse people strike me as annoying rich kids who think that they shouldn't have to follow the rules because they are a) rich and b) lacrosse players. I think it's the casual superiority that really gets to me. But whatever, at least it's fun to watch the game and my team is beyond good at it (Johns Hopkins has an all-time record of 871-272-15 in lacrosse (dating back to the 1890's), that's winning 75.8% of all games in the history of the program).