Major League Lacrosse :      August 26, 2001 [ The Game Story]
New Jersey Pride 9 Baltimore Bayhawks 20 Scoring: Scoring: Jesse Hubbard David Curry Jay Jalbert Drew Melchioni Tom Ryan Dave Stilley Jon Hess (3, 0) (2, 0) (1, 0) (1, 0) (1, 0) (1, 0) (0, 1) Tom Marechek Mark Millon Dixon Dudley Greg Mccavera Paul Cantabene Jarred Testa Josh Sims Rob Shek Kip Fulks Gavin Prout (5, 1) (3, 2) (3, 1) (2, 2) (0, 2) (2, 0) (1, 1) (2, 0) (1, 1) (0, 1) Saves: Saves: Steve Koudelka Trevor Tierney 5  (0.250) 3  (0.375) Greg Cattrano Tim Mcgreeney 15  (0.682) 4  (0.667) Current Record :     (8-6) Current Record :     (10-4) Team Page For 2001 Team Page For 2001       The Game Story:

The Pride started fast and furious. Goals from Curry and Melchioni opened the first minute of the game, and only a minute later Dave Stilley picked a Millon feed, going from X to the right wing, and took it coast to coast for a lumbering righty offside hip shot. It would stay 3-0 NJ until halfway through the first when, in a sign of things to come, Koudelka neatly stuffed a Marechek point-blank attempt, but then launched a 50 yard cross-field pass as he was running upfield to his left. Christian Cook had trouble getting a handle on the other end of the pass, so Paul Cantabene grabbed the loose ball and moved it to Marechek, who was goal-hanging on the vacated net. Marechek finished on Koudelka with ease. Baltimore then got it to 3-2 on a similar situation; Joe Ceglia had his stick up in the lane and made a nice deflection, but his chase after the loose ball to Koudelka's back left resulted in Ceglia raking the ball to Testa on the wing, who then cleanly scooped it and bounced off of Ceglia's hit to nail a diving lefty bouncer. New Jersey would bounce right back. Tom Ryan started a well-timed break on a turnover and Koudelka hit him with a behind the back outlet that caught him in stride. Ryan balked on the normal cross pass in the 4-3 break and it caught Cattrano off guard -- Ryan stepped into the hole and nailed a righty offside hip (Cattrano's lefty) overhand for the 4-2 lead. It would be the last time in a while that one of New Jersey's middies would step up to the plate and make a great play. Up to this point, the play at the top of the arc for NJ was characterized by missed passes under no pressure and flubbed ground balls with plenty of time. They were also not able to even get a step on their defenders. The first ended at 4-3 when Caione botched a routine pass across the top and Kip Fulks bolted for the loose ball. Fulks fought off a double team from Caione and Urick to goose the ball over the midfield. Fulks kept breaking and got the ball back down the left wing, where he then dumped it to Marechek on the left pipe. Marechek dipped and dunked with time to spare.

Nearly all the goals in the first were during unsettled situations because, aside from the plentiful bounty of turnovers and clearing snafu's, both teams were extending well to the perimeter players and clogging the lanes with active sticks. It also didn't help that the field looked like a bog -- the sod used to cover the infield was a mess, and guys were having trouble making hard cuts.

The second quarter had to have been the most dominating quarter for one team in MLL history (or this year i guess). Baltimore would start the period down 3-4 and leave it much different fashion, 13-5. It got kickstarted with one of the many NJ mental errors on the afternoon -- Cantabene broke on a Cattrano save, and John Hess, who was the deepest NJ defender by far, stood at the midfield paralyzed with the possibility of going offsides. Problem was, every one else on NJ was trailing Hess by at least ten yards, and Cantabene didn't stop running to wait for them. Hess didn't go over, and Cantabene hit Marechek, who hit Millon, who then rifled a high lefty that burned Koudelka. On the next trip down for Baltimore, Sims was coasting near the top right of the arc with the ball and Marechek was burning across the front of the goal from left to right. NJ fell asleep for a second with their off-ball coverage and Sims made the easy high-to-low feed to Marechek for a righty behind the back in one smooth motion. Baltimore now had the lead at 5-4. On the next face, Greg McCavera pulled some great ground ball duty and bumped it up to Rob Shek, who took a full sprint moving left to right in front of Koudelka and blasted one stick side righty with a three-quarters rip. Ahh, the next faceoff. This time McCavera gathered at the top right point of a 4-3 break and threaded it opposite low to Dudley Dixon for a lay-up and a 7-4 lead. Peter Jacobs and Justin Berry were alternating draws for NJ, and a big factor with the onslaught of Baltimore goals after (or nearly right after) the face was Berry's complete inability to play the slightest bit defense. About 6:00 minutes into the quarter, Baltimore settled behind with Millon, who backed up to the endline for some room to wheel and deal. Millon, who had been getting a step or two on Cook all afternoon, drove hard from back left to the right pipe and found Dixon camped out all alone on the left pipe. A quick cross-crease push feed from Millon and Dixon buried it without anyone so much as touching him -- the entire NJ defense had sloughed over to the side Millon was driving. Then Millon was the benefactor of a smart feed. Gavin Prout ran the length of the field on a clear as Massey was hounding his back with a shortstick (there were 2 Bayhawks breaking, but Massey was the only one chasing). As Prout came up on the point of the break, he faked a pull-up and dump, with made Massey relax for a second and allowed NJ to can their regular fast break rotation, but Prout continued to drive the lane and forced the 2 on 1 in the opposite corner. Millon's man slid up, Prout dumped it, and Millon finished for a 9-4 lead. Baltimore went up by another on yet another faceoff -- Dudley Dixon, on the top left point of the 4-3, got the feed across and hit Marechek on the same side low for a dunk after about 3 or 4 fakes. Marechek was still standing.

On the other end of the field, Baltimore looked prepared for NJ's firepower. The Pride's offensive set was a little odd in that they rarely ever had someone in the hole that could capitalize on a slide from the crease. They preferred to pass along the perimeter and gear up for a rip from Hubbard or Jalbert. But Baltimore doubled early on the drives to the wings and were effective in staying body-up on the dodges against short sticks. As Rob Doerr commented after the game, "they're all great shooters, you just have press out, just keep pressing out". It worked; New Jersey was often not able to drive and force a slide that exposed a weak underbelly. They just had to keep taking rips against a defense that didn't allow them to gradually sink in. NJ would, however, end their drought when Prout got nailed for a cheapshot slash against Jalbert (from behind) as Jalbert was heading upfield for a clear. The 2:00 EMO started with Hess being covered, off-ball, behind and NJ in a 1-4-1. Curry slid behind to work it from there while Hess was being hounded, but as the ball was worked around the top to Jalbert at the point, Curry snuck around from right behind. Jalbert whipped it to him, but a combination of checks in the hole set the ball scurrying, and Curry was able to grab his own garbage for an underhanded righty cleanup as he was falling. 10-5 Baltimore. On the next face, Shek grabbed the loose ball for the Bayhawks and burned through both Berry and Tom Ryan on the left wing. He shed them like little kids hanging on his legs to waltz in on Koudelka and stick it. It was another poor defensive display for Berry, who was the first one burned. Even Koudelka was on his case, yelling stuff like "Justin, get in the f***in' hole!". Another possession for Baltimore, another goal -- McCavera set up an iso to Koudelka's back left and made no secret about his intentions. He took Melchioni on a lefty drive that Melchioni had decent position on, but McCavera was still able to stick the running lefty underhand (with a couple seconds left on the 45 clock) ten yards out to Koudelka's five-hole despite a not-so-great angle and some not-so-great-speed. It was not Koudelka's day today -- he wasn't even getting the shots that you can count on a goalie to nab. That was further reinforced when, with about one second left in the half, Kip Fulks nailed a running left hander to Koudelka's top stick-side corner from 15 yards out, despite having a clear look. The half ended 13-5 Baltimore, and there didn't look to be much hope for New Jersey.

New Jersey was still suffering a little on offense to kick off the third. All of their shots were from the outside, and all of them were taken without Cattrano having to shuffle his feet. Plus, Baltimore used a novel way to cover Hess at X and the dodging middies up top -- they would slide to the middies from the crease and force them to the outside, and from there NJ would usually bump it to an uncovered Hess behind. But Hess never pushed the other side when he got the dump. He would just hang back, surveying the field like a quarterback in the pocket, looking to feed flat-footed from 10 yards back. So Baltimore would immediately stick tight to anyone who was off-ball in front of the cage, and then, after Hess couldn't find anyone, recover on Hess without penalty.

But Hess to Hubbard did connect to start the scoring in the third. Hess was drifting around from back left and fed it into a ton of traffic on the crease (there were 3 NJ players clustered). It squirmed through the pile and Hubbard, hanging on the top left of the arc, grabbed the bouncer behind the clot and rifled an underhanded righty that beat Cattrano for a 6-13 deficit. Then Baltimore caught some garbage of their own. Dixon, off to Koudelka's right on goal-line extended, tried to worm a tight feed into Marechek on the crease. It got checked, but Sims was burning to the left pipe from top center and gathered the rebound for an easy dunk. The Bayhawks controlled again, and as Frye was driving the left pipe from the top left of the arc, Wills hogtied Frye for a :30 hold. Frye wiped out near the goal because the sod in that general area was now complete slop. NJ held off the EMO with some sharp rotation, but just as the penalty was released and everyone checked up, Millon made a hard off-ball cut from back left to the hole off to Koudelka's left. Dixon, who was operating at back right, found Millon with a nice lead pass just out of reach of the shorti trailing Millon. Millon stuck it lefty low, and Koudelka got pulled for Tierney.

Balitmore pushed the lead to ten, at 16-6, when Millon was shaking and baking with some nice stutter steps and set-ups on Cook from the back left. After he got Cook to lean right momentarily, Millon exploded to his right and drove around the back of the goal. Millon hit Testa on the opposite pipe for a dunk as Tierney was still getting into position. Cook was pissed at himself.

Hubbard struck again for the Pride when he blasted one from the righty shooter's spot, and New Jersey was getting a little more aggressive on defense -- Carrier had a great series of tough position D on Marechek trying to come around the goal righty, and Melchioni was equally adept covering guys with his short stick. A note on some of the personnel: Carrier was starting on close defense because Reid Jackson was away on business, and Stilley and Ryan were on the field because their suspensions were being appealed.

Baltimore bumped the lead to ten yet again on what must have been the prettiest play of the game. Shek brought the ball down and stopped to set up shop at the top left of the arc. He moved it across the top, left to right, to McCavera, who immediately redirected down to Marechek five yards off of the crease. Marechek barely even touched the ball before one-timing it by Tierney. The beauty of the play was that, because of the quick ball movement, Dave Stilley, who had been in good position on Marechek when Shek had the ball, found himself boxed out by Marechek after it was bumped to McCavera. Stilley's check over Marechek's right shoulder was late. The third would end on that note and the 17-7 drubbing had even the fans (a pretty weak 2,000) acting lifeless.

Nothing much to write home about in the fourth because both teams could see the writing on the wall, but there were five goals scored. NJ started it off when Tom Ryan moved it across the top to Jalbert on his right, and Jalbert took off to his right for a nasty righty rip to the top left corner that looked like it would go through the net. But the Bayhawks answered after another bizarre defensive breakdown from NJ. Sims busted down the middle on a break and passed off to Sonke on his left, who was just standing there waiting to shoot. Sonke did just that, but did it with almost no time constraints or pressure -- it was like he was at practice. Then McCavera beat Melchioni again on an iso from back left. It was a carbon copy of his previous goal, and the slides were very late. 19-8 Baltimore. You could see that the Bayhawks were playing with smiles on their faces and were starting to get a little showboaty. Dixon played into that when he grabbed a feed at the top left point of a 4-3 break from the face (NJ's defense after faceoffs was horrendous -- they just kept giving up breaks) and nailed a righty behind the back from ten yards out. It made no sense to shoot it behind the back in that situation, but stuff like that was becoming common at this stage of the game.

The heart of the fourth was filled with some sloppy between-the-lines play and desperation shooting from NJ, none of which seemed to challenge new Baltimore goalie Tim McGreeney except for the handful of changeup-like efforts. The Pride would round out the scoring on the game with :06 seconds left -- Hess, behind left, lofted it to Hubbard on the top right and Hubbard banged one in.