all american honors?

[dtrain34]

"And there is no such thing as a face off guy who considers two face-off losses 'horrible."

My friend...I was trying to inject a little humor, which was lost on you, but truth be told you...yeah there is. There are also defensemen who consider their man scoring more than 1 point a bad game, goalies who consider more than 5 goals a bad game, so on and so forth. Youdon't run in the same circles as some of the rest of us.

From reading this post alone about Mr. Turtle ("I heard that he once punched out a horse"), and then knowing about 4-5 guys who are similar in their dominance, I would say that they consider losing two draws a game as a bad day.

Please do not assume the rest of us judge ourselves by mediocrity. Instead, you should strive for the dominance expressed on your collection of NoFear shirts.

You could never, ever, never...GET ON MY LEVEL!

[Ben Clark]

I was trying to inject a little humor, which was lost on you, but truth be told you...yeah there is.

Well which is it?

[byualum]

Please do not assume the rest of us judge ourselves by mediocrity. Instead, you should strive for the dominance expressed on your collection of NoFear shirts.

I have no idea who you are, but that is really funny.

[StrykerFSU]

50% at the face-off X, both guys are pretty terrible.
75% - is not "automatic," that guy is probably pretty good, his teamamtes probably really like him

When you see a face-off guy who loses one, on a horrible day two, face-offs a game and dominates the ball...those are the guys we usually refer to as automatic.

Not to throw too large of a monkey wrench into your theories on face off dominance there dtrain34 but the NCAA D1 Face off stats for 2006 were as follows (I know, I know those lousy D1 teams with their inferior east coast players )

FACE-OFF PERCENTAGE

Rank Name, Team Games FOs Won FOs Lost TM FOT Pct.
1 Alex Smith, Delaware 17 261 120 385 0.685
2 Geoff Snider, Denver 17 242 112 370 0.684
3 Dan Kallaugher, Yale 14 178 102 313 0.636
4 Dan Spinella, Hobart 14 97 60 312 0.618
5 Greg Peyser, Johns Hopkins 14 90 56 301 0.616
6 Jake Deane, UMass 18 233 146 399 0.615
7 Greg Gurenlian, Penn St. 13 158 101 273 0.61
8 Chris Eck, Colgate 15 186 125 332 0.598
9 David Tamberrino, Maryland 16 145 102 337 0.587
10 Charlie Glazer, Virginia 17 128 91 450 0.584

http://www.insidelacrosse.com/page.cfm?PageRID=130913

[Danny Hogan]

don't take the bait stryker

[dtrain34]

hahahahahah, Mr. Hogan that was well done. Alas, I will keep it in check. It was too easy there before.

I will say, that YOUR BOY is injecting us with worthless stats. Wait...are we talking about D1, scholarship, specialist, athletes? Perhaps if we used the face-off stats from the MLL to compare to the USILA, that would work better.

Every couple of years, there are face-off guys in our league that do as advertised my friend. Usually they are built like RamMan (you'll remember him as an ally of He-Man and the Castle of Grey Skull), have animal like strentgh and/or quickness, and combined with a great goalie (or other great player for that matter) can take most teams to national prominence.

See Sonoma, UCSB, BYU (to name a few...) and now Oregon.

P.S. There is no way your real name is Clif Stryker Buck; you either dabble in porn on the side of the oceanography, or that is an alias, because your true identity fights crime and saves the world on a weekly basis

[StrykerFSU]

The point, since you so clearly missed it, was that even arguably the best face off specialist in the NCAA over the past two years, Alex Smith (see recent IL and LM articles), "only" had a winning percentage of 69%. As you so astutely pointed out, that was in D1 and not the MCLA however he attained those stats while competing against his peers in ability just as a MCLA face off specialist would. That is unless of course your mythical face off guru was able to pad his stats against some inferior competition (if there is even such a thing in the WCLL).

That said, I would have loved to be able to use MCLA stats to support my point but I was unable to find any. Let's not even get into the suspect statistics that are reported for some MCLA teams and the fact that some teams don't even report face off winning percentage on their web sites. I was merely trying to use hard evidence to support a point rather than anecdotes.

I'm not discounting any player's skills or touting my own personal favorite but face offs just so happen to be something I know a little about and I took great exception to your comments and the manner with which you made them.

Best of luck to all of the players up for All-America.

[dtrain34]

"I took great exception to your comments and the manner with which you made them." You seem like a real hoot. I would hate to see how you react to the foul language and racial undertones peppered throughout my stand-up routine.

My point, since you "clearly missed it," the playing field in which you are using as your comparison is not even; nor is the competition in the USILA.
In D1 athletics, if anyone in the top 25 beat the number one (let's say #25 beats #1, that is a big upset). In our league, if #25 beat #1, the world would come to an end. And, the face-off guys on the #25 team are generally no where near skill level of those on the #1.

I will use an analogy that is more to your expertise. A lake, although still water, is different than the ocean.

Please do not in a fit or rage teleport to the West Coast, use telekinesis to cut off my head, and steal my wit.

[Danny Hogan]

utah/CSU in the game that flip wasn't there

[laxer0308]

im just going to chime in but watching Arizona play this year I feel you have to put Attackmen Corey Smith into the mix. I mean first he got jobbed with the WCLL conference team because you have to put your charity cases in for 1st and 2nd team, but as a freshman he took on the #1 defensemen and still put up outrageous numbers. If he got the green light to go to the goal every time he would be putting up some of the top numbers in the country. Look for him to be a threat at nationals, even if he is being locked off throughout the tournament

[ineedmorecowbell]

utah/CSU in the game that flip wasn't there

ah yes. i remember that game. that was my freshman year when i was still playing close d. csu was not too happy after that one. i bet they felt the world was over.

[anklebreaker]

Yeah I was there for that game 4-3....Turk had a hat trick as a freshman and Utah clearing was unreal. That was the logest bus ride home, but then we got flip back and rode Alex Smith and Jared Katz to the National Championship.