College: Brian Raaka at NCAA DII Dominican

Brian Raaka

Dominican is a strong DII program, with excellent coaches and a terrific roster. In 2013, the Penguins set an all-time school best record (8-5), produced an unscathed conference record (6-0) in the WILA,  and had 14 of its scholar-athletes make the conference all-academic team!

Sophomore Brian Raaka, former Miramonte standout, made the conference All-Academic team, was named 2nd team all conference (for the second year in a row), and has started every game of his Dominican career at LSM. 

I just counted up the number of games I've watched Brian play. 87 games. Lots of them with the Lamorinda Lightning, a number with NorCal travel teams. a good number at Miramonte HS, on the recruiting circuit with the Alcatraz Outlaws, and a couple at Dominican.  Brian plays with joy, abandon, and skill. Hard to find anybody better to watch than someone who combines those qualities!

Congratulations for the honors and awards, Brian! You deserve them all.

College: Penquins clobber Argos

Dominican University met Notre Dame de Namur Saturday and the Penquins thumped the Argos, 18-3. LaxPower has a nice write-up that can be read here.

Nice comment about former Miramonte standout Brian Raaka. At the moment, Dominican is ranked #7 in NCAA DII.

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!