Fairfield versus Yale PreGame Report March 9, 2013
To the Founders and Friends of Fairfield Lacrosse-The #19/#17 Fairfield Stags play the 2012 Ivy League Champions #20 Yale Bulldogs at 1 PM on Saturday March 9th in New Haven, CT. This game will be the Bulldogs’ season home opener. The Stags come into the contest with a 3-2 overall record and the Bulldogs sport a 2-1 overall record. The game will be stream live from the Yale Athletic web site for free and will be on live stats. Will send the links in a separate e-mail the Founders and Friends of Fairfield Lacrosse.
The Bulldogs opened on the road on February 23rd in Queens, NY and were upset by a 10-9 score by St. Johns. Yale next traveled to Albany, NY and beat SUNY Albany by a 15-8 margin. On Tuesday night, the Bulldogs came to Fairfield and played Sacred Heart won by a 14-6 score.
Sacred Heart got off to a 1-0 start and then Yale got two goals for a 2-1 lead after the first period. Yale outscored Sacred Heart by a 6-1 margin in the second quarter for a 8-2 lead at halftime. Sacred Heart closed the margin to five goals in the third period to 9-4 with 2:49 remaining. The Bulldogs closed the third period by a 10-4 score. Yale beat Scared Heart by 4 goals to 2 goals in the fourth period. Yale outshot Sacred Heart by a 40-22 margin and a 23-21 advantage for ground balls. Yale went 2-4 on the extra man while Sacred Heart was 0-3 with an extra man.
Yale’s web site does not give a lot of stats for the opponents. The Bulldogs have scored 38 goals this season with a 12.67 goals per game advantage for a .286 shot percentage. The Yale opponents have scored 24 goals with 8.00 goals against average. The Bulldogs have taken 44.3 shots per game with 133 shots total being taken. Via the assist 25 goals were scored and 13 goals have been unassisted. Yale has been successful with an extra man 7 times out of 14 chances for a .500 conversion rate. Yale has scooped up 94 ground balls and have had 42 turnovers. The Bulldogs have caused 31 turnovers. On the face off, Yale have won 40 of the face offs taken in 2013 out of 72 chances for a .556 percentage and they have been successful on the clear with a .925 percentage.
Leading the Bulldogs in scoring is Junior Brandon Mangan who has scored 10 goals and has 6 assists for 16 points. Sophomore Conrad Oberbeck has 10 goals and 1 assist for eleven points for the 2013 season. Kirby Zdrill has 6 goals this year and no assists while Colin Flaherty has five points with two goals and three assists. Eric Natale has played 176 plus of the 180 minutes played in goal and has allowed 23 goals. His goals against average is 7.82. Natale has been credited with 29 saves and has a .558 save percentage. Jack Meyer made one apperance in goal for 3 plus minutes and allowed one goal.
The Stags played last Saturday and had a good offensive show in beating UMBC 14-9. Fairfield has scored 43 goal this year after taking 168 shot attempts for a 8.60 goals per game average and a .256 shot percentage. Their opponents have scored 43 goals with the opposition has taken 202 shot attempts for a 8.60 goals per game average and a.213 shot percentage. First time in doing these write ups that I have seen the Stags and their opponents have the same number of goals and goals per game average. Fairfield has taken 33.6 shots per game and the opponents are averaging 40.4 shots per game. The Stags have gotten 24 goals via an assist and 19 unassisted goals while the opponents have 18 goals via the assist and 25 unassisted goals. Fairfield have converted four extra man goal this season going 4-19 this season for .211 conversion rate while the opponents have scored 6 goals in 17 attempts for a .353 conversion rate. The Stags went 1-1 with the extra man unit against UMBC.
Fairfield has gotten to 154 ground balls and the opponents have scooped up 177 ground balls. The Stags have turned the ball over 78 times this year while the opponents are turning the ball over 72 times. Fairfield’s defense has caused 32 turnovers this season and the opponents have caused the Stags to turn the ball over 47 times. In the face off circle, Fairfield has won 41 of 102 attempts for a .402 winning percentage and the opponents have been successful 61 times out of 102 chances for a .598 winning percentage. The Stags have been successful on .837 percentage of their clears and the opposition has cleared the ball with a .847 percentage. Fairfield has been penalized 19 times this season and the opponents have been flagged 18 times.
The fourth period has been the most successful for the Stags with 13 goals being scored and 12 goals in the second quarter. The opening stanza has seen Fairfield score ten times in the 2013 campaign and eight goals in the third period. The opponents best scoring period is also the final quarter with 17 goals and the third period with 10 goals. Opponents have scored 9 times in the second quarter and seven times in the first period.
Leading the Stags in scoring are Jordan Greenfield with 12 goals and 4 assists for 16 points and Sam Snow is second on the team with 10 goals and three assist for 13 points. Super Soph Colin McLinden has three goals and seven assists for ten points. Nick Guida also has six points with five goals and one assist along with Tristian Sperry who has 6 points with three goals and three assists. Super Frosh TJ Neubauer has so far three goals and two assists for five points. Marshall Johnson has four points with two goals and two assists along with Eric Warden who has one goal and three assists for four points. Jack Murphy has played all 300 minutes in goal this year. He has allowed 43 goals for a 8.60 goals against average and getting 69 saves for a .616 save percentage. Murphy has faced 202 shots so far in this season.
What to expect for this game? What jumps at me right away is that the bulk of the Yale scoring is coming from two players. Shut them down and you cut off their scoring. But 8 different Elis put the ball in the back of the net against Sacred Heart. Yale is averaging over 12 goals per game. Yale beat Albany but Albany beat Syracuse and UMass on Tuesday and Albany also lost to Drexel. What does this tell us? Anybody can beat anybody in D1 lax!! Think the teams are closely matched as they are close in the national polls. This will most likely turn into one of the typical Fairfield lacrosse one or two game differentials. It is an important game for both teams to protect their national ratings. We “beat” Yale in the 2011 fall scrimmage. In addition to stopping the two top scorers, the Stags extra man defense must shut down Yale’s extra man unit with its 50% conversion rate. Look for the Stags tough defense and Murphy’s goal keeping plus the offense of Greenfield and Snow to top the Yale Bulldogs on Saturday afternoon. Roger Yergeau ’73
