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March 31, 2024 — Several firsts, not just the obvious one
Yesterday, in Springfield, Va., the inaugural weekend of Next Collegiate Lacrosse’s women’s league began with six historically black colleges and universities taking part.
It was a day permeated with firsts. And it wasn’t just the act of starting the league, which has given a number of the players and schools an outlet of play which had been closed off from them thanks to decades of discrimination in athletics and academia.
For the players from Bowie State, Morgan State, Coppin State, Norfolk State, Hampton, and the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, the firsts came thick and fast.
First, you’ll notice the helmets. And these aren’t the headgear that has been mandated in Florida high schools or the ones which are occasionally used by college players who have suffered head injuries in the past. These helmets are full-faced cage masks. Players were also outfitted with gloves and shoulder/chest protectors. The sticks used in this league are not the shallow sticks found in the outdoor women’s game, but are the deep-pocketed men’s sticks.
The game started not with a center draw, but with one midfielder from each team bending over the center spot and taking a faceoff. The women in NCL don’t have empty-crosse calls, midfield green cards, and shooting space. It’s a pretty unique setup in North America.
The women, in NCL, are playing the same rules as the men have played in the last two seasons — Olympic Sixes, a 30-second possession clock, and four quarters.
Too, the women use the same rule as in the men’s league when it comes to shots at goal: there is no backing up the ball with a race to the endline. Instead, the ball is awarded to the team that did not touch the ball last when it goes out of bounds. If the shot misses the cage, for example, the defense gets the ball. If a shot is blocked out of bounds by the defense or goalie, the offense retains possession.
In watching some action yesterday, these rules modifications are taking some getting used to. I watched a couple of instances yesterday when one team or the other brought the ball into the attack area very slowly — so that the offense sometimes had as few as eight seconds to maneuver the ball for a shot on goal.
Also, sometimes you saw a player up top get dispossessed and the opposing team ran the ball up the pitch at speed with nobody back. These are the kinds of things that would drive you crazy if you were a coach, but you have to give the players some grace and room to improve with some training.
Morgan State, one of the teams on show yesterday, was impressive with how they limited mistakes. There has been a club team at the Northeast Baltimore school for several years, and the NCL could be an avenue for a varsity women’s team one day.
But there was one thing I saw yesterday that I had not seen before in any game of lacrosse — men’s or women’s, field or box, recreational, varsity, or international. One of the teams had some players go down with injuries and with what looked like leg cramps. I found myself counting helmets looking to see how many healthy players the team had. The last four minutes of the game, the team played short because there was literally no healthy person on the bench.
Hopefully, this will result in more people from that school coming out for the team in ensuing weeks.
March 30, 2024 — 25 Years of Lacrosse: Top Games
Last in a series of blog entries on TopOfTheCircle.com’s quarter-century of covering lacrosse.
Though this blog only dates back to 1998, my knowledge and experiences in watching the game date back a decade further. Indeed, the first time I saw a high-school game, it was a game a few miles away from Princeton University when two local sides — a small private school named Stuart Country Day School and an enormous public school then called West Windsor-Plainsboro took up sticks in a non-conference game.
The game became an absolute goalfest in a gorgeous glen called Magnetti Field. I seem to remember the total of goals being somewhere around 40, with WW-P getting 24.
Before starting this blog, I also experienced perhaps the single best scholastic game I have ever seen, even to this day. It was a Saturday game between two rival prep schools, Lawrenceville and Princeton Day School.
As this was a Saturday afternoon, the game had an inherent conflict with a number of Saturday afternoon contests. One of those conflicts was spring club soccer, which one of Princeton Day’s star players, Dana Decore, had to miss the opening draw in order to attend. As the story goes, however, the soccer game was a forfeit, allowing the two-sport athlete to play the lacrosse game. Toward the end of the first half, a passenger van pulled in behind the scorer’s table, and Decore hopped out in full lacrosse kit and stretched her hamstrings.
PDS was behind at the time, and Decore certainly made a difference. The sides were level at the end of regulation, meaning that overtime was next. It was the first major contest that I had witnessed an extra-time period. Back then, overtime was a six-minute period, split into two halves. The golden-goal rule did not apply.
In the last minute of overtime, PDS forward Kathy Knapp had an 8-meter free position shot. She managed to bounce the ball off both vertical goalposts to score the game-winner in a 16-15 win over a quality Lawrenceville side.
The next great game I saw occurred in May 2001 when Maryland beat Georgetown in triple overtime of the NCAA Division I final. There were some amazing twists to this tale even before the game ever started. Maryland, trying to win its seventh straight national title, had been behind in its previous game against James Madison, and had been a goal down with four minutes to go, and JMU had the ball. But Tori Wellington made a trail check to get the ball back, whereupon Maryland got the equalizer.
Maryland won the next draw, took it to the attack end, but were dispossessed. Madison defender Rachel Sappington tried to shovel the ball back to her goaltender, but the ball sailed over the head of the netminder and settled into the netting. It was an own goal.
The Terps, having gotten into the national semifinal by the skin of its teeth, were able to win the semifinal game, only to run into a good and determined Georgetown side. Maryland had run out to a sizable lead, whereupon Georgetown head coach Kim Simons replaced her goalie. The Hoyas mounted a comeback, in the midst of which Maryland head coach Cindy Timchal also put in her substitute goalkeeper.
The teams traded goals throughout the second half in a thrilling contest, and the teams finished regulation level at 12 goals apiece. The mandatory six minutes of extra time finished at 13-13, whereupon Allison Comito scored in the 68th minute of play to win the national championship for Maryland.
The next game I saw of note was May 8, 2005. That day, Ellicott City Mount Hebron (Md.) hosted a good Moorestown (N.J.) side in a matchup of two of the finest girls’ lacrosse teams. The pulsing music and a capacity crowd added to an incredible atmosphere. Hebron won that game by an 11-5 count. The teams would play more times over the next three seasons.
In 2010, we saw a game which was memorable because of what has become a trend in tournament lacrosse: the increase in game-changing umpiring decisions. The NCAA Division I final between Northwestern and Maryland saw the Wildcats seemingly about to blow out Maryland in the first half, scoring the first six goals of the game. However, the Northwestern bench was yellow-carded for dissent, and the game was level by halftime. The Terps would win 13-11.
In April 2012, there was a unique scholastic lacrosse happening. It was a weekend when four Long Island and four Maryland lacrosse teams matched up at Brooklandville St. Paul’s School for Girls (Md.). Two quadrupleheaders were scheduled, with all eight games featuring one Long Island team and one Maryland team.
Much of the attention surrounded the nation’s finest team, Owings Mills McDonogh (Md.). The Eagles, playing skilled and enterprising lacrosse, defeating both of their opponents.
Six weeks later, we saw one of the most amazing turns of events in a lacrosse game would take place at Stony Brook University on May 26, 2012. The game featured Syracuse and a Florida program which was only in its second season. The game was tied 13-13 when Florida attacker Gabi Wiegand scored a free position goal with eight seconds remaining.
However, Syracuse coach Gary Gait called for an umpire check on the depth of Wiegand’s stick, and it was deemed to be too deep of a pocket. Syracuse would score a golden goal in the next overtime period to win the game.
Three years later at PPL Park in Chester, Pa., the NCAA final between North Carolina and Maryland turned on another unusual event. With UNC scoring a goal to draw within one in the final four minutes, the Heels were called for delaying the next draw, an illegal substitution penalty. The Terps held onto the ball and ran out the clock.
In 2022 there was an unprecedented contest in the professional ranks. In the final match weekend of Athletes Unlimited, a team captained by former UNC goalie Taylor Moreno and another by Boston College product Sam Apuzzo finished with Moreno’s team winning 9-7. But that wasn’t all the spectators were watching. With about three minutes to go, the unofficial individual point totals were flashed on the scoreboard, with the leaders — Apuzzo and Moreno — at 1767 points each.
These points were accumulated throughout the season in a Rotisserie-style formula which includes statistics for individual points — goals, saves, turnovers, assists, and Player of the Game votes all count towards personal scores.
The final score — 1797 for Moreno and 1787 for Apuzzo — was so close, both were invited to a lectern to make remarks at the closing ceremony as if each had been awarded the gold medal as Athletes Unlimited champion. The point totals were audited for a recount — something we’ve never seen in sport, much less lacrosse. The final score after the recount was 1798 for Moreno, and 1782 for Apuzzo — a margin of 16 points. The final total for 2023 was even closer, as Moreno beat Apuzzo by a mere 12 points.
There was another memorable contest at U.S. Lacrosse headquarters in 2023. In the schools, Darien (Conn.) met St. Paul’s in an intersectional contest. The two schools agreed to play with some IAAM rules, which included defenders being able to run through the crease, releaseable yellow card penalties, and, of note, the 90-second possession clock.
One of the most memorable events of the day was a two-hour, 19-minute weather delay which necessitated the evacuation of Tierney Field. When the teams got back, they played a gripping last quarter-hour, with Darien winning 13-12.
Who will take part in the next memorable game we get to report on? Stay tuned.
March 29, 2024 — 25 Years of Lacrosse: Top Players
Fifth in a series of blog entries on TopOfTheCircle.com’s quarter-century of covering lacrosse.
Inasmuch as the world of Division I women’s lacrosse has seen great players on a number of different teams in different roles, there has always been one constant: the center midfielder for the University of Maryland. There has been an unbroken line of great draw-takers who have been in the center circle for the Terps the last 30 years, from Kelly Amonte to Quinn Carney to Acacia Walker to Dana Dobbie to Erin Collins and Katie Schwartzmann to Karri Ellen Johnson to Taylor Cummings to Zoe Stukenberg to Kali Hartshorn to Lizzie Colson to Shaylan Ahearn.
That’s a lot of current and/or future Hall-of-Famers in that list.
One of these midfielders was memorable above and beyond her role as draw-taker. For me, Taylor Cummings is the greatest all-around midfield player I have ever seen at the college level. She also authored the first definitive “Tewaaraton Moment,” a play which would cement her being awarded the 2015 award for being the best college lacrosse player.
The scene: Johnny Unitas Stadium in Towson, Md. The game was a Division I semifinal against a good Syracuse side. While Maryland was on the front foot to start the game, Syracuse was mounting a comeback that was interrupted by a TV timeout. And, as it turns out, Cummings.
She took the next draw after the media timeout against SU’s Kailah Kempney. She popped the ball into the air, leapt, caught the ball, and, like a knight on a horse, galloped towards the goal. Her goal just eight seconds after the break wrested the momentum away from Syracuse, allowing the Terps to pull away for the win.
But was Cummings the best player of all time? I’m still of the opinion that the first Tewaaraton Trophy winner, Maryland’s Jen Adams, was the finest women’s lacrosse player to ever walk the face of the earth. She authored a number of scoring records and was the talismanic forward who would get the telling goal for Maryland during her four years in College Park. She didn’t do anything fancy; she just got the job done without flash, flair, or self-aggrandizement.
One recent player who has created a body of work worthy of being considered as being the best-ever player has to be Charlotte North. The former Boston College and Duke attacker gained a following during and after the COVID-19 pandemic through her social media videos. And she had the opportunity and green light to use her considerable skills in games.
In terms of goaltending, my favorites over the last 35 years are players who are unconventional.
My first impression from 1989 of how a goalie should play came from watching Gina Carey, who started her college career playing field hockey at Ohio State, but became a game-changer as a goalie at Trenton State College. Offensive teams playing against the Lions in those years found Carey to be more like a spider than a human: she would use her goalie stick to smartly intercept loose passes around the crease, making some passing attacks have to think twice.
There have been few people who played defense like her. At least until Devon Wills came along. The former Dartmouth star and U.S. women’s national team player thought nothing of double-teaming the ball whenever a defense took the ball into the office. You might not think it would be terribly effective leaving the goal cage unattended, but the tactic was effective.
Also using that tactic on the national-team level was Gussie Johns, who played at USC after prepping at Alexandria St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes (Va.). While a lot of eyes and publicity were fixed on the offensive end of the field while Carly Reed and Besser Dyson were part of one of the best partnerships ever seen on the attack end, Johns was learning from playing against that attack in order to make the U.S. team.
The excellence of girls’ and women’s lacrosse has also begun to span the nation in the last 10 years, as non-traditional areas like Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Illinois, and Georgia have yielded some amazing players. One of the best was Caitlyn Wurzburger. She authored an astounding resume at Delray American Heritage (Fla.), playing varsity for six years (allowable under Florida rules), as well as accounting for 1,027 scoring plays, as either the finisher or provider of the final pass.
Wurzburger, while rewriting the record book, was also responsible for the rewriting of a section of the NCAA rulebook. As a recruit, she received more than her share of attention when she committed to Syracuse in 2016 as an eighth-graderr. She also received equal attention when she de-committed from Syracuse to attend North Carolina two years later. The current recruiting rules limiting contact from coaches and when a formal commitment can be declared came in large part because of this episode.
Wurzburger came into her college career with a lot of expectations. She was the leading scorer for the United States U-19 national team at the 2019 World Cup. In videos and in all-star games, she showed the ability to find a teammate by hitting a spot the size of a milk carton from 40 yards. She also helped the UNC team win the national championship her freshman season.
There are other players who showed extremely well when given the chance to play in the free-flowing professional game, whether it was for the original United Women’s Lacrosse, the competing Professional Women’s Lacrosse League, or the current iteration, Athletes Unlimited.
Cummings, of course, shone brilliantly the first year of Athletes Unlimited, winning the individual award for the league. But the last couple of years, the story of AU has surrounded two players: attacker Sam Apuzzo and goalie Taylor Moreno. The last two years, Moreno has outpointed Apuzzo by less than 20 points, necessitating a recount at one point in 2022.
But I also saw former Northwestern star Kara Mupo, James Madison graduate Elena Romsburg, and Cummings play extremely well in UWLX play. But for me, one of the best players in the post-graduate scene was Dana Dobbie. She authored several highlight-reel type plays when she played in the UWLX and continued them. She scored a number of creative and imaginative goals not only for her pro teams, but for the Canadian national team. In 2022, Team Canada won silver in the World Lacrosse World Cup of 2022, as well as the gold medal in the 2022 World Games in Alabama.
March 28, 2024 — 25 Years of Lacrosse: Top Coaches
Fourth in a series of blog entries on TopOfTheCircle.com’s quarter-century of covering lacrosse.
As much as lacrosse has been about players and teams, they wouldn’t be anywhere without great coaching. And te worlds of girls’ and women’s lacrosse have been chock full of great coaching the last quarter-century.
In Division I, the best coaches, for me, have been Cindy Timchal of Maryland and Kelly Amonte-Hiller of Northwestern. Each had dynastic eras in the last 30 years of the sport, through recruitment and innovations in equipment and sports science.
There have been other great coaching performances over the years, including those by Princeton’s Chris Sailer, Virginia’s Julie Myers, UNC’s Jenny Slingluff-Levy, and Boston College’s Acacia Walker-Weinstein.
Sailer, especially, deserves credit for the way that the game changed over the years. She was an absolute genius when it came to creating matchup problems for the opposition, especially in the early to mid-1990s when all 11 outfielders were allowed to jump into the attack.
In the lower divisions, there is only one name for me: Sharon Goldbrenner-Pfluger. The head coach of Trenton State/The College of New Jersey has more than 650 wins on the lacrosse field as well as a passel of national championships.
Pfluger has also been a great servant of women’s sports at Hillwood Lakes, winning more than a thousand contests in both field hockey and lacrosse over more than 75 seasons combined in both sports. She’s one of only about a dozen coaches to be featured in the NCAA Hall of Champions in Indianapolis.
In the schools, there have been several memorable coaches that I have met over the last 25 years. One is Angela Tammaro, who has nearly 1500 wins in both field hockey and lacrosse at Greenwich (Conn.) Academy.
I have also had the pleasure of interviewing Kathy Jenkins, who is the only coach that Alexandria St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes (Va.) has ever had since starting the program in 1976. Since then, she has accrued 850 wins as the head coach of the Saints. She has taken the difficult road when it comes to scheduling the team, traveling as far as Florida for competition, then bringing in a number of regional and national powers for a series of games in the annual Spring Fling.
Another coach of note over the last quarter-century is Chris Robinson. No matter whether he coached Ellicott City Mount Hebron (Md.), Owings Mills McDonogh (Md.), or Orlando Lake Highland Prep (Fla.), he was able to find success with his teams. He harnessed the talent and gave them a relentless drive for perfection through excellence in winning the draws and executing at the attack end.
Equally matched in terms of being able to give teams a sense of relentlessnes is Brooke Kuhl-McClelland, who took over from Robinson at Mount Hebron. McClelland, who was the coach of dance teams in Howard County, Md. for several years, used a lot of those principles of movement and accountability to create nearly unstoppable teams.
More recently, a lot of folks have taken notice of the job that Darien (Conn.) head coach Lisa Lindley has done for the Blue Wave. Lindley, last year, coached perhaps the finest season the school has ever had, including her 500th career coaching victory. She won the TopOfTheCircle.com United States Coach of the Year award after a state championship season during which the team not only played in what turned out to be the most competitive league in America, but also played one contest under a slightly different set of rules from what the Wave are used to.
March 27, 2024 — 25 Years of Lacrosse: Top Teams (part 2)
Third in a series of blog entries on TopOfTheCircle.com’s quarter-century of covering lacrosse.
In the last few years, the leading teams in girls’ and women’s lacrosse have evolved. Although Maryland has won five national titles after the end of their seven-year championship streak from 1995-2001, the dominant side since has been Northwestern.
The Wildcats’ program won seven national titles from 2005-2012, and another last year with a dominant team which could win another this season (last Friday’s result against Penn State notwithstanding).
The story arc for Northwestern is as improbable as it has been dominant. Head coach Kelly Amonte-Hiller was hired to resurrect a program which had been defunded and shut down in 1993. In just four years, the Wildcats stood atop the platform as NCAA champions thanks to timely scoring, defense, and, importantly, athletic players.
The purple line of tremendous athletes coming through the program are legion. I think the start of the Northwestern dynasty had come when, as the story goes, Amonte-Hiller was driving around Evanston when she saw a pair of twins running in a park. The twins, Ashley and Courtney Koester, became the building blocks for the program’s first national title in 2005 in a game held in Annapolis, Md.
Great players followed. The team had some absolute geniuses on the offensive end such as Shannon Smith, Kara Mupo, Hilary Bowen, Katrina Dowd, Kristen Kjellman, and Hannah Nielsen. The team also had players who did great on defense such as Christy Finch, the Koester twins, and Taylor Thornton.
Northwestern’s post-COVID history is one which has been driven by current stars Izzy Scane and Erin Coykendall. Too, the Wildcats were able to secure goalie Molly Laliberty from Division III Tufts through the transfer portal.
Speaking of Division III, the team that has supplanted TCNJ as the dominant national program in that division is Middlebury College. The Panthers have won four national titles since 2016, including two of the last three.
Head coach Kate Livesay has put together a tremendous program since taking over from the legendary Missy Foote, recruiting not only from northern New England, but getting the occasional Division I-level talent. Look no further than Jane Earley, the Cohasset (Mass.) product who left through the transfer portal to take a graduate year at Denver University, a team which made the Division I Final Four last year.
In terms of scholastic lacrosse, the dominant program in recent years has been Owings Mills McDonogh (Md.). The team won 198 games in a row from 2009-2018, even as the Eagles program played a number of interstate games over the years. The bulk of this success came through head coach Chris Robinson, who used draw controls and possession in order to build this dynasty.
The Eagles had some of the great players of the era, including Taylor Cummings, Sammi Burgess, and Megan Whittle. The height of their collective dominance was on an April weekend in 2012 when four Maryland and four Long Island teams met for two days’ worth of quadrupleheaders at Brooklandville St. Paul’s School for Girls (Md.). On the weekend, McDonogh beat Garden City (N.Y.) 20-9, then the next day, topped Hauppage (Md.) 14-1.
There have been other great teams and coaches over the last 25 years, but these live long in the memory.
March 26, 2024 — 25 Years of Lacrosse: Top Teams (part 1)
Second in a series of blog entries on TopOfTheCircle.com’s quarter-century of covering lacrosse.
When we first started this site, it was in the era of extraordinary, strong teams at the very top.
In the early days, for better or worse, the three teams to look to were Maryland in Division I, The College of New Jersey in Division III, and Ellicott City Mount Hebron (Md.) amongst the schools.
Each of these three programs wrote incredibly successful histories on the field and off.
Maryland, from 1995 to 2001, won seven consecutive national championships. They did so through an array of talented players as well as tactical and technical innovations.
Some of my favorite players to watch during this era included Kelly Amonte, Quinn Carney, Courtney Martinez, Alison Comito, and the greatest female lacrosse player who ever lived, Jen Adams.
As much as Maryland won on their talent, they also did a lot of things differently from everybody else. Primarily, they hired Gary Gait, fresh off an all-American career for the Syracuse men’s lacrosse team, to be an assistant coach. Gait would bring a number of wrinkles on offense to the Maryland program. He outfitted the team with yellow molded-head stick with yellow strings, all the better to hide the ball.
While Maryland dominated Division I, The College of New Jersey similarly dominated Division III. The Lions, under head coach Sharon Pfluger, won six national titles from 1991 to 1997, winning an astounding 102 games in a row. The team dominated the 1990s by recruiting a lot of Division I-level talent who, for one reason or another, chose to play D-3. I remember one phase in which Pfluger was able to successfully lure the entire front line of a championship-level high school team to Hillwood Lakes and that success continued.
Speaking of scholastic lacrosse, the team that was the dominant program in the early days of this site was Ellicott City Mount Hebron (Md.). The Vikings, from 1994 to 2007, won 14 state championships, including 11 in a row from 1997-07.
Hebron had some awesome teams, with players from Megan Bosica to Kristen Waagbo to Cathy Nelson pacing them. This site documented some great games that the Vikings had in a home-and-home series with Moorestown (N.J.) as well as the end of the school’s 103-game win streak in a loss to Camillus West Genesee (N.Y.).
As always, however, streaks and dominating eras wax and wane. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss the teams of the present.
March 25, 2024 — 25 Years of Lacrosse: First Impressions
First in a series of blog entries on TopOfTheCircle.com’s quarter-century of covering lacrosse.
It was May 1989 when your Founder first saw a lacrosse game as played by women. The scene was the 1989 national semifinals held in West Chester, Pa.
I had been somewhat familiar with the game as a child in Mississippi. My father had somehow come into possession of a blue-strung wooden lacrosse stick. I remember it always sat along the back wall of the garage in our home. It was just one stick, no ball, and I never knew either where it came from or what to do with it.
I was exposed to the game infrequently as a youth, but, as you do, you could go to lacrosse games at your university and try to learn the rules as if drinking from a firehose.
And this certainly was the case when I saw my first women’s lacrosse games.
I had a number of strong impressions about the game at the time. First off, the “freeze-tag” rule was something that I found unique. The only thing I could draw a parallel with was Australian Rules Football, where a team could forfeit the right to close-cover a ball-carrier for a period of time. In women’s lax, this was because of a minor or major foul.
A second nuance was the lack of restraining lines and/or boxes around the field. Like cricket, the boundary in women’s lacrosse, at least before the rules changes in the 90s and 00s, was the natural boundary of whatever competition surface was being used. Teams could bring all 11 outfielders into the attack if they chose. Coaches could be dispatched to both the offensive or defensive ends of the lacrosse pitch, leading to scenes where two groups of coaches would be giving encouragement to the players on either end while sometimes using two-way radios.
Depending on the location, you could have oblong, offset, or L-shaped playing areas. Also, I heard tales about having football goalposts, long-jump pits, park benches, or even trees in play at certain lacrosse grounds.
I was also fascinated by the use of the 8-meter free position shot, which, depending on execution, was something like a football placekick or a basketball free throw. Theoretically, if you were a good enough shooter from 24 feet out, you should be able to make them with regularity.
All of my impressions changed over the years, especially with the rules changes putting in free movement, restricting the number of players on attack or outfielders on defense to 7 per side, and the 90-second possession clock.
But one of my first impressions has changed somewhat, and that is about the way that free positions are currently thought of. Back in the day, my impression was that a free position was a near-automatic goal, and the pace of a 24-yard throw could beat most goaltenders of the day.
That impression has evolved as goalies got better and defenders on the 8 would run in with ruthless intent to make a stick check or even an interception of the intended shot.
Attackers have had to run plays off an 8-meter in order to flummox defenses, and you also saw players like University of Maryland attacker Quinn Carney making a seven-step run to the top of the crease and dunking the ball over the goalie’s head.
These days, you’re seeing more players taking after former Boston College attacker Charlotte North, and putting all kinds of pace behind the ball to score off the 8.
The game has certainly changed over the last 35 years. But my curiosity about the nuances of the game have never left.
March 24, 2024 — The limits of technology
“TV 2 is not responding. Please check your network connection and power supply again.”
A few years ago, when I joined AARP, the giveaway I was given was a piece of technology slightly larger than a hockey puck. It’s an Amazon Echo Dot, and it has allowed me to do things like control the lights in my living space, get weather reports, and turn on and off appliances through voice commands.
But a few weeks ago, the smart outlets I was using slowly started to deteriorate. At first, they were giving the message that the plug was not responding. I would grudgingly unplug the smart plug, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in again.
Then, one of the plugs stopped working altogether: the blue indicator light was not showing whatsoever. Then another stopped working.
Part of the limits of technology is that, no matter how expensive or useful a particular piece is, it is subject to the laws of thermodynamics. Everything, from a car stereo to a cell phone to a flatscreen TV to a smartplug, has a finite lifespan. Components can overheat, wires can fail, and plastics can decompose.
Fortunately, they are easily replaceable. A trip to the hardware store resulted in a wholesale change of my four smartplugs. In less than half an hour, the four plugs were matched to the handy app and are responding to voice commands through the Echo Dot.
Having hard-wired an alarm system in our old house in New Jersey several years ago, I’m amazed at how quick and easy it is to now replace components in our connected environment. I’m pretty sure my parents would have been completely flustered at life with a wireless alarm system if they had lived long enough.
One reason that I’m touching on something as mundane as smart plugs is the fact that your Founder is going into the hospital tomorrow for cardiac surgery.
I’m a little apprehensive, as this is the second time I’m having an ablation in order to stop a condition called Atrial Fibrillation.
I’m hoping that my situation will get you to listen to your body and understand the signs of aFib, which includes a high heart rate, weakness, overheating, and shortness of breath.
If you have symptoms such as these, see your doctor.
This week, I’ll have some “best of” features when it comes to my 25 years of covering girls’ and women’s lacrosse. I hope some of these perspectives will tide you over until I recover from the procedure.
March 23, 2024 — Another key player in a key moment
Kristin O’Neill was on the eight o’clock hashmark 1:28 into overtime as Penn State and Northwestern were tied 13-13.
The whistle blew, and O’Neill charged in as two Northwestern defenders converged like missiles. And O’Neill evaded the pressure and shot to the right of Cats goalie Molly Laliberty, giving Penn State one of its biggest wins in the last 25 years.
Penn State is a team which has made two Final Fours in the last decade. But the Nittany Lions have mounted few serious challenges to the national powers since winning two national titles in 1987 and 1989. However, this team showed they could run, pass, and shoot with the one team which that most pundits had winning the national championship wire-to-wire. Perhaps, some said, this was the most prohibitive favorite to win the national title since 2001 Maryland.
Northwestern is a team with the current Tewaaraton Trophy holder in Izzy Scane, a tremendous scorer in Erin Coykendall, and Laliberty, the Division III standout. And they may very well be holding the gold plaque at the end of May at WakeMed Soccer Park.
But last night was Penn State’s night.
March 22, 2024 — The key player in the key moment
If you ever knew what pressure was, you’d understand the lineup that Jun Kentwell, head coach of the U.S. women’s national indoor hockey team, trotted out for the post-overtime shootout in the championship final of the Pan American Indoor Cup against Argentina.
In the indoor game, the shootout is best of three rather than best of five, meaning that the No. 3 shooter has to be, in the parlance of curling, “the hammer.” The player you want to score. Your best shooter.
And with the gold medal on her stick in the third position in the shootout with the shootout even at 2-2 after a 5-5 draw in normal time, who would you rather have at the center dot than three-time Honda Award-winner Erin Matson.
Of course, her goal in the shootout gave the United States a 3-2 shootout win, the gold medal in the Pan American Cup, and an automatic berth in the next FIH indoor World Cup.
During regulation, Reese D’Ariano was her usual excellent self, scoring four times, including two in the 26th minute of play to give the Applebees a 4-3 lead, and a 37th-minute equalizer that sent the sides to the shootout.
You have to credit Argentina, a team which had lost 7-1 to the U.S. to begin the tournament, for its play on the day. The Albicelestes were on the front foot, taking a 2-0 lead in the first 12 minutes before D’Ariano and Matson scored in a two-minute span to tie the game 2-2 at the interval.
D’Ariano has been the single greatest scorer in this tournament, racking up 16 in six matches, more than any player in either the men’s or the women’s competition.
It’s numbers like this which could very well place unfair expectations on this 15-year-old. But she’s definitely fun to watch.
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