The Crease Dive's 2019 NCAA Lacrosse National Championship Preview
Happy Memorial Day, boys and girls. A day when we can kick back and remember all of those who have fought and served the greatest nation in the world. And it’s also a day to crown a college lacrosse National Champion.
Now here’s the thing–when we get to this point of the year, nobody knows what in the goddamn heck we’re going to see out there. It’s the last game of the year. Both of these teams are loaded. Both of these teams have weapons all over the field. Yale has been here before as the reigning champs, but Virginia plays some real big dick lacrosse. You’d have to be the most naive son of a bitch in the world to think that you could predict the way that this game is going to go today. Which is exactly what we did on this episode of The Crease Dive.
Yale vs Virginia | Today, 1pm | ESPN2 | Line: Yale -1.5
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell you that faceoffs are obviously going to play a major role in this game. Mostly because I doubt that rocket scientists actually care about college lacrosse, but who knows considering an Ivy League team is in the final. But yeah, this game is going to go as TD Ierlan goes for Yale. We saw it on Saturday against Penn State. If Yale wins every damn faceoff, score on every damn possession, and then just run it back with another faceoff win? It’s going to be a long day for anybody they’re playing against. And you’d think that the shot clock would maybe take away from how much of an impact that faceoffs have in the game considering it’s not like teams can just win faceoffs these days and then sit on the ball for minutes at a time. But that’s not Yale’s game anyway. They just run and gun, and they just sprint for 4 straight quarters. Part of that is skill, part of that is having a ridiculous strength & conditioning program, and part of that is just pure cockiness that they know they can score at will.
So Virginia is probably heading into this game knowing that they’re going to get worked at the faceoff X. Which means that the next biggest key to the game is going to be the Virginia defense. Because if this game starts off the way that the Yale vs Penn State game did on Saturday, there’s a chance we end up seeing a good ol’ fashion shit pumping today. But if Virginia’s defense can string together a few stops early on in the game and take some of that pressure off of Virginia’s offense so they don’t feel like they need to score every time they touch the ball? Well then this game goes down to the wire. Because as long as the game isn’t completely out of hand, Virginia’s 2nd half offense always gives them a shot.
I think Virginia’s defense is definitely stronger than Penn State’s so I’m gonna go ahead and say that this game comes down to the wire. I still think that Yale is too dominant all over the field to not pull out the win. But if you have a book that will take lax bets, my money would be Virginia +1.5, but Yale straight up. Also, the o/u for this game is 29.5 and I would hammer the shit out of that over.
Have yourselves a day out there, boys and girls. And make sure you’re following along @thecreasedive on Twitter and Instagram all day for some live updates.
P.S. – Before we wrap this up, I just need to give a quick shoutout to the Cabrini Cavaliers on bringing home the DIII National Championship yesterday. A local school here in Delco taking on the world and coming out on top. What a bunch of legends.
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