A pre-preview
-
- March
- 24
Put Valley’s Hugh O’Gorman will be primarily employed on defense this season after playing midfield last year. (File photo by Elizabeth Orozco/The Journal News)
Continuing to touch base with coaches. Here are some early insights on Somers, P’ville, Put Valley.(Remember, the official Journal News lacrosse preview will be on April 2. Start counting down the days.)
SOMERS: There will be a LOT of new faces. Somers lost 18 seniors. Half of the 20 players on the rosters are either freshman or sophomores.
“We’re young, and we’re lean,” said first-year coach John DeVito, who’s been an assistant the past six years.
Still, a familiar face will be Joe Marasco, a junior attackman who has started since eighth grade. He can do it all — and will be asked to do so—on such an inexperienced team. He’s already verbally committed to Ohio State.
Another player to watch on Somers is Quinnipiac-bound Chris Coppolecchia, a strong defenseman.
P’VILLE: After being upset by Ardsley in the quarters last season, the Panthers should be ready to go from the outset in the upcoming year. This is a team to monitor closely as the program continues to grow. The bulk of the roster has grown up on the varsity with no JV team in existence three years ago.
Defense should be a strong with Chris Gautieri leading the way. He’ll be starting for the fourth straight year. He might not make highlight plays but he’s fundamentally sound and is always in the right position. Matt DiFabio is also a returning defenseman and is physical.
PUT VALLEY: One of the most intriguing players in the upcoming season might be Hugh O’Gorman, a senior defenseman who was a middie up until the final game last season. The change worked so well that he made the Empire team as a defenseman after the season ended, and he’ll be on defense again this season. He also still has offensive skills and the Tigers will ask him to do a bit of everything.
This entry was posted
on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 2:11 am by Jeff Gold.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Share and Enjoy: Digg Google StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! | 
Print This Post
| 
Email
To comment on Gautieri being fundamentally sound, I was at the P'ville v. Lakeland scrimmage and the kid ate up groundballs all day. That is a stat that, like you said, isn't a highlight play but comes up big for a team. He really impressed me with the way he played on Saturday. He took the ball away on nearly every 1 on 1 situation also, and against Lakeland's top offensive players. As a team especially in the second half they played well. Freshman goalie Connor Fraylick played lights out.
yeah huuuuuugh
I can't wait to watch Jo Jo this year. He is an incedible athlete.
Joe- is it april 2nd for when the preview of the top players comes out??
The entire lacrosse preview, which will include features, reports on top teams and players, and games to watch, and much more comes out on Wednesday, April 2.
Anyone have any thoughts about Duke losing to Georgetown?
Interesting info, Jeff.
Can you tell us about the Somers goaltending situation?
Somers' goalie is going to be sophomore Chris Longo. He was the goalie on the JV and coach John DeVito said he's played well in practice and has improved every day.
Thanks Goldie. BTW — I was not surprised that a disciplined, well-coached team like Georgetown beat Duke. A team with a hot goaltender too, I might add, in Rye resident Miles Kass. You can compare it to hoops. If a team is going to beat North Carolina, then it's going to have to be a team that plays a halfcourt game and outstanding defense. You saw what happened when Arkansas tried to run with UNC. Talent-wise, I do believe Duke is the best team in the country. But if Duke and Hopkins played 10 times, I think they'd probably both win five times. And this is a Hopkins team that is coming off a string of three straight overtime losses. It's been a real interesting college season so far. The final four should be pretty memorable once again. For those who may not know, it's going to be played in Boston for the first time (at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough) which should be interesting.
section one scrimmages.
Does anyone have scores on this last weekend scrimmages with Rye, Somers, Briacliff, Hen Hud, Greeley.
How are the top players for the article chosen joe?
Ballin – We get a lot of input in selecting the players. The most valuable of which comes from coaches assessing players from other teams. We also put a lot of stock in our own evaluations of players. Another factor that also comes into play is the college destination of the players. So there are a lot of factors that are weighed and considered.
somers is gonna get rocked this yr but any decent teams, they got no one on offense besides jojo, and the goalie cant save anything
Thursday we get to see how far behind Section 1 the CHSAA is in talent. Iona Prep scrimmages John Jay and Fordham Prep scrimmages Somers. I'm thinking blowout in both cases…Fordham is already 0-3 after the Jesuit Invitational, losing to teams from Texas and Illinois. Any thoughts on whether or not the private day schools in the area (chsaa and ivies{Hackley, RCDS})could develop top notch programs that could compete with the area's best?
JoJo is going to tear the league apart. No school will come close.
Disparity, i hate to correct your prediction, but Fordham Prep lost to Somers only 5-3, giving up one open net goal at the end of the game. Fordham is a young team, with only 1 starting senior. JoJo was also contained most of the game. The same could not be said for Iona Prep, who was losing to John Jay 8-0 at half, and ended up losing 10-3.
Lax4life72, thanks for letting me know how the scrimmages went. Suprised by the FP/Somers contest. As a CHSAA fan, I root for the teams, but rarely put much faith in their games against section 1 opponents. Do you know anything in detail about the teams? good laxers v. good athletes? If a team can shut down Marasco they must be sliding well or have a defender that is worthy of praise…section one or not.
Jojo will get a lockdown middie or pole all season if Somers has no other credible threats on attack, same treatment Ferguson will get at Mam'k this year. Their coaches will have to find a way to get them the ball in the open field to take advantage of their speed and 1-on-1 skills.
Well, FP's schedule has them playing against Mam'k later this season. Hopefully, they will contain Ferguson as well as they were able Marasco. Also, Iona is scheduled to play Chaminade…similar score to the Jay scrimmage? Iona ran through the league last year in a similar fashion to the FP '05 team, which didnt receive much respect. However, if one was to examine that roster: DeSoye- St. Joe's (D1-but fairly weak), Schramm-Gettysburg, Myles Monaghan-Haverford(played 2 seasons at FP before transfer to Mam'k, highly touted within section 1 and empires), and Nugent-no college lax but great athlete; the team seemed to possess talent level on par with most of the top section 1 teams at the time. Outside of general growth of the sport, can Iona or Fordham pick up recognition/respect within the area at least in the next few years?
Fordham Prep's current roster is a team of outstanding athletes, whose lax skills are improving daily. Although young, I expect a lot from the team this season, and even more next season with the loss of only one senior starter.
since when is losing to the 9th ranked team in the country by the score of 10-3 a bad thing? If you were there, you saw an impressive showing from the young but exprienced IP team. I think that the gaels will be able to hold thier own on saturday and prove many worng who think that they will get destroyed by the #6 flyers. not going as far out to predict an upset im just saying that i think many people will begin to look at Iona as a power in thier leauge and a very very solid team. lax4life72, are you sure it was 8-0 at half. I didnt pay attention to the score but it seemed alot closer then that. I thought it was something closer to 5-1 at half with a final of 10-3. Like I said I didnt pay much attention to the score seeing as it was just a scrimage, so you may be right, but i was impressed with the fight that IP played with.
also, any word on how stepinac is doing this preseason. i think the chsaa will be fun to watch with the 3 local schools looking like the top of the leauge followed by msgr farrel of staten island.
since when is losing to the 9th ranked team in the country by a score of 10-3 bad? if you were there you saw an impressive showing from the young but exprienced IP team. it will be an interresting game if they can play as well vs chiminade as they did vs.JJ. lax for life 72, are you sure it was 8-0 at half? i didnt really pay attention to the score but it seemed closer then that. i thought
sorry about thbe double post. i was having some computer problems.
It seems like the Fordham-Iona rivalry is being taken to the next level along with their programs, both schools are playing increasingly harder schedules. Will Fordham and Iona surpass the rest of the CHSAA in skill? Well for years the two schools had always had more talent than the rest of league, and now that they are taking lacrosse more seriously as a sport, I think we might not be seeing any other schools having a chance against these two.
I think that Fordham Prep nd Iona will blow there CHSAA league out of the water but idk if they will ever rise to many section 1 programs. Iona has a very sold attack line and middies are good but can there D hold up, Fordhams has a few standouts including a very good goalie junior Chris Moffa who can stand with most Section 1 goalies a solid D but offence needs to improve to match with most teams on there sched. Stepinac may be a good team this year but they dont show the want to improve as a school like Iona and Fordham. I think that Iona Fordham games will be solid lacrosse games as Fordham held up wit Somers who scored on an open goal and 2 fast breaks so if Fordham can tighten up ther transition D and score some goals they will be able to hold there own and Iona showed they can play solid lax also.
One word for everyone about the game against Somer AWESOME!!! That was the best game ever played by P'Ville! Conor Fraylick was AWESOME like always!! P'Ville won 6 to 4!!! It was really a truly great game!! Conor Fraylick was the BEST like he always is! The team all together played good, but Conor Fraylick played GREAT!! They started out rough but know there great!