Arizona State 18, Oregon 17 FINAL (3/27/07)

[CATLAX MAN]

I don't remember who said this but both teams need to think about this: "Offense wins games, but defense wins championships."

In any case, a huge win for the Sun Devils. Congrats!

[CPLaxGM]

Wow, an 18-17 score between two Top 10 teams (or at least soon to be Top 10 teams)!! That is really rare. I bet this is the happiest Coach Hopkins has ever been after his defense gave up 17 goals. Has one of his teams ever given up 17 goals? Incredible.

[Kyle Berggren]

I realize Oregon had a weekend they'd like to forget, but 2 1 goal losses isn't the end of the world. I don't want to chastize their defense here either, 1 game isn't really indicative of what they've done this season. Worst case scenario, they didn't play their game, & got caught up trying to run & gun with ASU. ASU made them pay for it! That's especially impressive when you look at the number of face-offs the Ducks won... Usually great goalie play & great play at the face-off X can keep you in games, but missing one of those makes it tough.

Congrats on a huge win for ASU!

[CATLAX MAN]

In a lot of ways, these losses will help Oregon in the long run. It will prove to be good experience to be on the wrong side of a game like this during the regular season if they learn how to handle this situation when tourney time rolls around.

[Chris Gaffney]

Wow, good game on both sides....

Shake it off Ducks, still a lot of lacrosse left to play.

[Kyle Berggren]

Cat, I was thinking the same thing, it's a wake up call.

Another thing, maybe the ducks didn't change their game plan... They were plagued by throwing the ball away. It will be easier to ask Stockton later if they were really trying to force the ball, or just taking advantage of unsettled situations. I dont' remember hearing they were making bad decisions, just that they couldn't pass the ball well today. Who knows? but this is the 3rd number 1 to go down this year... Dallas should be an interesting tournament to say the least.

[Kyle Berggren]

Pic after the game as per Jason's phone,

[Dr. Jason Stockton]

Honestly, this was not the game I expected to see today. Oregon led for pretty much the entire game, and seemed to run out of gas down the stretch. ASU never let the game get away from them, and they made just enough plays to win. It was a gutty, gutty effort by ASU, and an excellent coaching job in my opinion by Adam. His guys scored huge goals out of timeouts (at the end of the 1st quarter and the end of the game) and he made a ballsy move by changing goalies at halftime--when the kid in the first half wasn't playing badly---and the freshman goalie was lights out in the closing minutes of the game.

The defense was not as bad as the score might indicate. . .it was more a product of players getting caught too far from the cage during transition. Oregon scored several goals off of their ride. . .but conversely there were several "slow break" goals in the game by ASU. . .Oregon's ride was incredibly effective at taking the ball away from ASU, but when ASU found a way to clear the ball, it often resulted in an easy goal for the Sun Devils.

I think it just goes to show how close the top 10 teams are to one another. . .this may be one of the hardest-to-predict tournaments in memory. Great game by both teams. It was a pleasure to watch, despite the 30mph winds. ..

[COlaxer]

Any bets on Westfall being player of the week for what, the third time now??