The Trojan lacrosse team has been forced to keep its win-streak on hold for a few weeks due to crazy amounts of rain in southern California.  Someone needs to get Al Gore on the phone and let him know that global warming has just gotten serious: it’s affecting lacrosse.  

People of America hear me when I say the climate is out of control.  Innocent college lacrosse players are being denied their freedom to play lacrosse.  Citizens, it would appear America has a new enemy.  We’re being terrorized by Mother Nature.  

The climate alert has just been updated to an orange, almost red level.  It’s kinda like a burnt orange.   Or a sunset-esk amount of terror.

Which is ironic because things are far from sunny!  We must come together and solve the climate crisis before lacrosse remains a victim of of Mother Nature forever.  I pray the Lax Gods her something for Valentine’s Day…

Due to inclement weather in the forecast, Claremont’s administration has closed the field this weekend.  The game has been rescheduled for April 1st at 7pm at Claremont.

College Station, TX – The Trojans Wrapped up a weekend of lacrosse today with a dramatic overtime win against Texas A&M, marking the third win in as many games.  The Men in Cardinal and Gold dominated early in the game, jumping to a 3-2 lead at the end of the first quarter with a quick wrap-around goal by Attackman John Duddridge (Santa Ana, CA/Foothill), who had 2 goals on the day, 8 on the weekend.

“This game we began to see our middies find their match-ups and captalize offensively. The offense has been coming out firing in the first half, with a lot of different faces hitting the net”, Duddridge said of the USC offense.  Going into the half, the Trojans led 8-5.  After halftime, it was the defense that would make the difference, especially since penalties continued to dog the Trojans.

“Defensively we did a lot to put ourselves at a disadvantage considering the number of penalties that we tallied up, but we were still able to come together and dig ourselves out of the hole. The man down unit finished the day with a strong success ratio”, commented goalie Jeff Barton (Englewood, CO/Cherry Creek).  Barton’s quick hands kept the Men of Troy in the game multiple times, making clutch one-on-one saves in the waning minutes of the third and fourth quarters.

As the final seconds of the 4th quarter wound down, the Trojans looked to be victorious, leading the Aggies 10-9.  But with 3 seconds left on the clock, a scrum developed in front of the Trojan goal, and a ground ball was flipped into the net by A&M, dashing USC’s hopes for a regular-time victory.

The overtime clock wasn’t going to tick for long, though, as another crucial save by Barton led the Trojans into a transition.  Senior Midfielder and Captain Kase Lawal (Houston, TX /Kinkaid) would lead the Trojan clear into an offensive attack.  With a quick split dodge, Lawal found enough separation from his defender that he could fire a 12-yard shot that found rope and ended the game.

“It Started as a normal clear, and then the wing attackman, Jordan [Levitz], led his man away from me, leaving a lot of room for me to dodge and shoot.  I’m just glad we didn’t give the game up”, quipped Lawal, who had 3 goals on the day.  Barton added “It takes a lot of composure to get scored on with three seconds left and turn around and win in overtime, so i’m proud of my team for being able to pull it off.”

On the day and the weekend as a whole, Lawal said “It was a hard fought game. I’m glad we came out with the win, we just have to stay consistent through the rest of the season and not let up towards the end.  Overall it was a nice three W’s.”

Head Coach David Aktary said of the wins “we played well this weekend.  I don’t think we are yet playing to our full potential, but we’re getting there.  It’s nice to see both the defensive and offensive units gelling… there is communication and anticipation now that wasn’t there just a week ago.  Our experience from this weekend will go a long way to prepare us as we head into our conference games.”

With a record of 4-2 after this weekend, USC plays at conference rival Claremont College next Saturday at 2pm.  For more information on USC Men’s Lacrosse, visit www.usclacrosse.com

It was a stat rat’s weekend at the Texas A&M tournament this weekend.  The SC offense came out bangin’ mad G’s scoring 18,16, 11; in our games against Kansas, Baylor, and A&M respectively.  Our defense put in even more effort than our offense.  The D killed all kinds of man-down situations.  Yes, we’re still having problems with penalties.  But the average is slowing dropping.  So that’s a plus.  Honestly though, I think the MCLA just needs to add some flexibility to the rules to account for our beastitude.

Kase Lawal topped off the weekend with an OT game winner against Texas A&M; and it was almost too perfect.  Only a few minutes into OT Kase had the ball at the top of the box and we all knew what was coming.  The stars had aligned: it was his home state, his parents were at the game, he’s a captain, he’s a senior, and he has the dirtiest split dodge on the team.  Just about everyone on the SC sidelines had their hands in the air before Kase even shot.  It was a great way to wrap up the weekend.

As for Texas itself, we have all been pleasantly surprised by what the Great State has to offer.  Unfortunately, the weather was a little cooler than we had hoped for.  So the only usage of Daisy Dukes was kept secret.  The sun was definitely out, though.  Half of our team looks like stop signs.  We all needed to start our spring-break base anyway.

A special thanks goes out to all the parents and relatives of the team that fed us to point of explosion.  We all appreciate the hospitality so much.  I think we can attribute the wins this weekend to being so well nourished.   Thank you.

Seattle, Washington – The Trojans gave themselves a Valentine’s Day present with a 12-11 win over the Huskies of the University of Washington in their second game of the Pac-10 Tournament.  Jumping out to an early lead, the Trojans led the Huskies 8-4 going  into half time, with goals contributed by multiple Trojan players.  While penalties continued to plague the team, key contributions by midfielder Andrew Smulligan (Lowell Mass. / Lowell High School) in the form of 17 won face-offs and a last-minute assist to midfielder Matt Williams (Durham NC / Durham Academy) helped USC walk away with a win.  Williams and attackman John Duddridge (Santa Ana, CA / Foothill High School) led the scoring with 4 goals each, followed by sophomore attackman Jack Buntmann (Greenwood Village, CO / J.K. Mullen High School) with 2, and midfielders Smulligan and Rich Giancola (Centennial, CO / Cherry Creek High School), who both contributed 1 goal.

Captain goalkeeper Alex Rice (Los Angeles, CA / Blair Academy) stopped an impressive 68% of the 34 shots he faced, including a clutch last-second attempt by the Huskies to tie the game.

The Trojans will look to continue the wins with a match against conference rival Loyola Marymount University this Saturday, Feb. 20 at 1pm at LMU.

Get all your USC Trojan Lacrosse information at www.usclacrosse.com

On the airplane back to L.A. we still couldn’t escape the excitement from the win over University of Washington. John Duddridge finished the game with 4 goals, 3 assists; but the greatest part about this win was that we played strong all across the field. Midfielder, Matt Williams, came up clutch with under a minute to go with the game winner, and Alex Rice proved he not only has ‘ice’ in his name but ice in his veins saving a last second shot attempt by the Huskies. Our only weakness was mental mistakes, allowing ourselves to be man-down far more than we would have liked. We were multiple men down on more than one occasion. Even on the flight home.

The tournament was a great way to start off the season and the Washington game was a great way to head into our conference game this weekend against LMU.

Make sure to watch Sean White take home gold this week. Go USA.

The Trojans came out of the gates strong against a deep-benched Oregon State University, racking up 6 goals in the first quarter.  After their offense stalled in the second quarter, the men in cardinal and gold found themselves plagued by penalties the rest of the game and unable to produce, despite multiple shot opportunities.

Leading the scoring was returning, starting midfielder  Matt Williams (Chapel Hill, NC / Durham Academy) with 3 goals.  Attackmen John Duddridge (Santa Ana, CA / Foothill)  and Jordan Levitz (Chicago, IL / Stevenson) both contributed 2 goals, while attackman Avery Brovick (San Diego, CA / Francis Parker) and middies Will Purvis (Coronado, CA / Coronado) and Kase Lawal (Houston, TX / Kinkaid) all put one in.

Starting goalie, Jeff Barton (Englewood, CO / Cherry Creek), played a solid game with 13 saves and 12 clears, but with 8 1/2 penalty minutes against the Trojans, they found themselves on defense too much which resulted in an OSU Beavers 12-10 win.

The venue for the UNLV @ USC game for 2/7/10 has changed to Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, CA.  The start time is now 11:30am.

I am happy to announce that you will now be able to hear about Trojan lacrosse directly from the players in a new section on the website called the Team Blog.  Starting off our blog posting is Sophomore Attackman Jordan Levitz.  In his first post, you can read about his take on the state of the team and the upcoming 2010 season.  Enjoy!

- Coach Aktary

The USC Men’s Lacrosse Team has released its 2010 schedule.  The Trojans will be making two major trips to face off against out of conference opponents this year.  During the first trip, the Cardinal and Gold will square off against PAC-10 rivals Washington State and Oregon State in the PAC-10 Tournament held in Seattle at Washington University.  The second major road trip for the Trojans will be to College Station, Texas, where they will face new competition in Baylor and Kansas, as well as Texas A&M, against whom the Trojans had an nail-biting game last year at Florida State’s Southern Shootout.  Naturally, USC will play a full conference schedule against some of the most highly-ranked teams in the nation like UC Santa Barbara, Loyola Marymount, and 2009 National Runner-Up, Chapman.  As is the tradition, regular season play will end with a game against UCLA, who will be playing on Trojan turf this year.  The full 2010 schedule can be found on the MCLA league website or on usclacrosse.com.