College: Colorado Mesa defeats Queens, 8-7

Austin Pridham

Colorado Mesa travelled to Charlotte, North Carolina to take on Queens University in a battle of solid NCAA DII powers in front of 500 screaming fans. Austin Pridham, the former Bellarmine standout, scored the winner with 28 seconds left in the contest! He had a hat trick for the game.

On the defensive side of the field, Colorado Mesa's Eric McCosker, former De La Salle standout, had 2 GBs and 2 CTOs to blunt the Royals offense.

For the Queens University Royals, Casey Hock, former Monte Vista All-American, had a goal in a losing cause. Casey continues to lead the Royals in Goals and Points.

Here's a news story about the game:

http://www.laxpower.com/laxnews/news.php?story=32590


These pictures will bring back memories for a lot of NorCal Lacrosse fans:

Austin Pridham, Mitch Flaherty, Casey Hock, and Shane O'Neil (Eric McCosker was in the shower while this picture was taken)

Mitch and Casey

In the lower picture, it's worth noting that Mitch and Casey first played TOGETHER on The NCJLA U-13 NorCal travel team that went to Vail in 2005. That's a lot of history! These guys all played AGAINST each other in NCJLA games even before that. Amazing!

Thanks to Lori Hock for taking these photos. She's the best!

College: Colorado Mesa travels to North Carolina to face Queens

In an upcoming NCAA DII Intersectional battle between two teams with NorCal players, the 20th ranked Colorado Mesa Mavericks will travel to Charlotte, NC taking on 11th ranked Queens University Royals. March 9th.

Colorado Mesa has five NorCal guys on the roster:
Mitch Flaherty Amador Valley
Eric McCosker De La Salle
Shane O'Neil Foothill
Austin Pridham Bellarmine
Guiliano Sanchez De La Salle

Queens has one NorCal guy:
Casey Hock Monte Vista

Casey has started all three games for Queens and has tallied four goals so far, playing a rugged schedule having faced #9 Post and #1 Mercyhurst.

For the Mavericks, Austin Pridham was third in goal and assists last season, Eric McCosker was third on the team in caused turnovers, and Shane O'Neil was third in ground balls in 2012. All big-time contributors!

Should be a great game!

NCAA Player Impact Ratings

In an earlier post, I covered a mathematical system, developed by Dr. Martin Feldman, for assessing the impact lacrosse players have on the game. My earlier post can be seen here.

In this post, I list the NorCal NCAA players in DI and DII who performed in the top bracket created by Dr. Feldman, the author of "Player Impact Ratings". To make Dr. Feldman's list, DI players had to participate in at least ten games. Players whose Impact Rating number would have made this list, but who did not participate in ten games are not included. To give just one example, Giancarlo Sangiacomo's Impact Rating would easily have made the top defender list, but he did not play in the requisite ten games.

NCAA DI:
Attack: Parker Brown (Brown), Alex Capretta (Princeton), Billy Mattimore (Bucknell)
Midfield: Rob Emery (UVA), Roy Lang (Cornell), John Glesener (Army)*
Defense: none in top 200
Goalie: none in top 200

NCAA DII:
Attack: Austin Pridham (Colo. Mesa), Casey Hock (Queens), Gabe Garcia (Colo. Mesa)
Midfield: none in top 200
Defense: Brian Raaka (Dominican U)
Goalie: none in top 40

NCAA DIII:
Attack: Jack Bodine Haverford)
Midfield: Nick Alimam (Kenyon), David Lee (Williams)
Defense: none in top group
Goalie: Nick Massa Kenyon

You can find the rankings for all NCAA players whose complete stats were reported by the respective colleges here.

Taking all positions into account, NorCal's highest rated NCAA DI Impact Player was Parker Brown of Brown University. For NCAA DII, Brian Raaka of Dominican University was NorCal's highest rated Impact Player, and for NCAA DIII, Nick Aliman of Kenyon College.

Congrats to the players who repped NorCal Lacrosse so well!
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* John Glesener played his Youth Lacrosse for the Scorpions and played his Freshman year at De La Salle, before moving to West Genesee, New York.

Western Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association releases All-Conference teams

The western Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (WILA) recently released their Men's All-Conference teams. A number of NorCal guys were honored. You can see the entire ALl-Conference list at:

http://www.westsidelax.com/news_article/show/148615?referrer_id=427506

Several NorCal players I've enjoyed watching over the years were honored. Here they are:

1st Team

Kevin Arabejo D NDNU of Danville (HS in Ann Arbor, Michigan)

2nd Team

Reed Upson A Dominican Davis HS

Dalton Copeland M Dominican Novato HS

Brian Raaka LSM Dominican Miramonte HS

Honorable Mention

Austin Pridham A Colorado Mesa Bellarmine

Giuliano Sanchez D Colorado Mesa De La Salle

Congrats to all these guys for succeeding at the next level!