April 2, 2004                                                                      

Event:  Men’s Lacrosse

Site: Ann Arbor, Michigan (Oosterbaan Fieldhouse)

Score: #5 Michigan 4, #1  Colorado State 11

Records: UM (7-2, 3-0 CCLA), Colorado State (11-0, 1-0 RMLC)

Next U-M Game: Saturday, April 3 – Michigan Invitational - vs. UC – Santa Barbara (Ann Arbor, Mich. – Oosterbaan Fieldhouse), 7:00 p.m. EST

Ram's Second Half Surge Downs Wolverines

Event Recap I Boxscore I Notes & Quotes I Photos

Ann Arbor, Mich. – The #5 ranked University of Michigan men’s lacrosse team was defeated by the #1 ranked Colorado State University Rams by a score of 11-4, in front of 717 fans at Oosterbaan Fieldhouse, Friday night (April 2).  The Wolverines looked solid out of the gates, but unforced errors and mental breakdowns at the end of the second quarter and on into the second half left the Wolverines with their first defeat in five games.  The last time the Wolverines lost was over a month ago, to BYU on February 28. 

Webber had Ray Lombardi had two assists and now leads the team with 21 helpers.

The Wolverines jumped out to an early lead, thanks to two goals from junior Bobby Groenke (Cincinnati, Ohio/St. Xavier) just over two minutes apart at 9:54 and 7:18 of the first period.  With U-M dominating possession early on, it wouldn’t be long before the Wolverines found the back of the net.  On Groenke’s first goal, the midfielder streaked down the right side of the field and released a hard, low shot that skipped by CSU’s goaltender Pete Jokisch.  Groenke’s second goal came just over two minutes later as he brought the ball into the zone on the left side of the goal on a transition play.  After selling the fact that he wanted to the bring the ball behind the goal, Groenke spun back towards the front, leaving the Ram defender behind him and buried another low shot, inside the right post. 

The Wolverines wouldn’t stop there, and soon found themselves on top 3-0 after a key faceoff win to begin the second quarter.  Junior long-stick midfielder Dave Silverman (Potomac, Md./Churchill) was able to secure the loose ball and moved down the right side of the field to Jeff Hanna (Fayetteville, N.Y./Fayetteville-Manilus) who it off to fellow senior captain Ray Lombardi (Lake Forest, Ill./Lake Forest). Lombardi found a cutting Anthony Ragnone (Flint, Mich./Flint Powers) on the far side of the field.  Lombardi led Ragnone with a perfect pass as the midfielder buried the transition shot to give the Wolverines an early 3-0 lead.

Despite continued pressure and several shots that found the pipes, that goal brought an end to the Wolverine’s good fortune in the first half, as the Rams would net the next three goals, including a marker with only four seconds to play in the half, on a breakdown in front of the Wolverine net.  A long pass from the top of his own box from CSU’s Mark Plonkey found a wide-open Nick Stanitz-Harper alone in front of the Wolverine cage.  Stanitz-Harper gathered the pass, turned and fired a shot past Michigan goaltender Dan Webber (Weston, Mass./Weston) to tie the score at 3-3 entering half-time. 

Although Michigan was able to notch the first goal of the second half, unforced errors and breakdowns would eventually lead to Colorado State grabbing the lead once and for all in the contest.  Michigan made the score 4-3 on another feed from Lombardi, this time sending a pass right across the mouth of the goal to an open Hanna waiting on the far side.  Hanna quick stick just inside the near-side post gave him his team-high 32^nd goal, and 37^th point.    

Colorado State would answer back just over five minutes later, with a goal from Matt Disney at the 8:22 mark, then gaining the 5-4 lead two minutes later at 6:19 with a goal from Tim Farquhar.  The Wolverines continued to press but with CSU goals at the 1:09 mark, and one right before the third quarter buzzer, Michigan entered the final period of play trailing 7-4.  The Wolverines got no closer, as the Rams netted four more unanswered goals in the final frame to defeat Michigan 11-4.

Michigan outshot the Rams, especially early on, recording 12 shots to the Rams 5 in the opening period and finishing with 41, compared to CSU’s 36.  Colorado State was able to win the majority of the remaining statistical battles however, notching 44 groundballs to Michigan’s 40, winning 10 of 17 faceoffs, clearing the ball 17-25 while holding the Wolverines to just over 50% at 16-29, and scoring the lone man-up goal of the game with 1-4 totals, while denying the Wolverines on both of their two man-up chances.  Michigan netminder Dan Webber finished with 12 saves, while Ram goalie Pete Jokisch recorded 17 in the win.

The Wolverines will play again tomorrow night, Saturday, April 3 at 7:00 p.m. in the second of three Wolverine games this weekend in the Michigan Invitational at Oosterbaan Fieldhouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan, taking on the #2 ranked University of California – Santa Barbara Gauchos in what should be another exciting contest.  Michigan will finish the weekend with a game vs. #12 Minnesota-Duluth on Sunday at 3:00 p.m. 

NOTES

●  Michigan’s trend of second-half domination was curbed by the Rams in Friday’s contest, as CSU was able to score eight second-half goals compared to the Wolverines’ lone goal.  Michigan has now tallied 68 goals to their opponents’ 33 in the second half. 

●  Jeff Hanna’s goal kept him on top of the Wolverines’ scoring list with 32-5-37 totals. 

●  Ray Lombardi’s two assists on the night put him first on the team with 21 assists, passing the injured Ryan Clark (Summit, N.J./Summit) who tallied 20 assists before falling to injury.  Lombardi also moved within one point of the team lead, held by Jeff Hanna and is 37 total points.   

●  Junior Brian Anderson (Lansing, Mich./Waverly) led the team in groundballs in the game, recording nine, which also sets a career mark for the defenseman.  His previous high was eight, set last season vs. UCSB (Feb. 26) and vs. BYU (May 8).  Anderson’s best groundball performances have come against some of the nation’s most difficult opponents. 

●  Michigan’s 11 goals allowed marks the highest number of goals allowed this season. 

●  With the home loss, Michigan’s record over the past five years now falls to 35-2.   Michigan is also now 23-19 since 1999 in games vs. a top-10 opponent.  Michigan will look to improve that record against #2 UC-Santa Barbara on Saturday evening.

●  Captain Justin Gal (Amherst, Mass./Milton Academy) notched a season high 12 shots in the loss vs. Colorado State.  He did not score.

QUOTES

UM Head Coach John Paul

On the game itself:  “Colorado State is everything they’re advertised as.  They are the number one team in the country and it showed tonight.  We knew going in that we couldn’t make the kind of mistakes we sometimes make against lesser opponents and get away it.  Things started to fall apart towards the end of the second quarter and just snowballed from there, into the second half and throughout the remainder of the game.” 

On the differences between the two halves:  “The difference for us was the mental mistakes and errors we started to make, especially on the offensive side of things.  We knew we couldn’t afford those kinds of errors and we ended up letting the game get away from us.  We had problems we knew we had to correct but we couldn’t fix them quickly enough and soon it was too late.”

On goaltender Dan Webber’s play:  “I think Webber was solid the whole game.  We couldn’t do what we wanted to do on offense in the second half, and it put a lot of pressure on the defense to keep us in the game, and Webber did what he could to keep us close.  Some of their late goals came on transition when it was evident we were starting to get a little tired out there on defense.”

On the play of attackman Ray Lombardi:  “I think Ray was our best offensive player tonight.  He was all over the field and was making good decisions throughout the game.  He had a couple of nice feeds and was moving the ball around really well.  We just couldn’t put together a complete effort.”

On the play of the defensive corps:  “The defense did a great job of keeping us in the game, especially early on.  We played great first-half defense and really slowed them down.  I don’t think they maintained a possession in the first half.  (Kirk) Kozel did a great job on (Kelton) Johnson.  The offense wasn’t giving those guys much support back there and you could see them beginning to tire in the second half.  Their (CSU) transition game hurt us towards the end.”

On allowing two goals in the final seconds of the second and third quarters:  “One word we’ve been stressing all season has been “composure”.  We’ve wanted to play consistently and not make the kind of mistakes that CSU would make us pay for.  We made those kind of mistakes and you could see why we couldn’t afford to play sloppy.”

On tomorrow’s game vs. #2 UC-Santa Barbara:  “No matter what happened tonight, win or lose, we couldn’t let this game define our season.  We need to come out tomorrow night with the same intensity that we brought to the start of this game.  But tomorrow we have to maintain it.”

Contact: Joe Hennessy (734) 276-8493, jjhennes@umich.edu