With a season-opening showdown with ACC powerhouses No. 6 Duke and No. 21 University of North Carolina quickly approaching, the No. 22 Dartmouth men's lacrosse team had its competitive tune-up on Saturday in a scrimmage against the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
As is etiquette for scrimmages, score was not kept on the scoreboard at Scully-Fahey Field. The tone of the game, however, mimicked the tone of a regular season showdown, and the Big Green edged the 2006 national runner-up Minutemen by a score of 7-4.
"The intensity was there. Both teams were playing competitively at the beginning and then things settled down later in the game," Ari Sussman '10 said.
Sussman led Dartmouth's offensive efforts on Saturday, scoring three goals in his first game in Hanover.
"He played really well, like a senior almost. He's really composed out there, and how he executes and knows all the plays, he's definitely helping us out," Brian Koch '09 said. A real impact freshman."
Three other goals were scored by underclassmen, as Koch, Jimmy Mullen '09 and Philip Killian '09 added to the Big Green's total. The underclassmen will play an essential role for Dartmouth's offense this season, as the team is without last year's top two goal scorers Jamie Coffin '06 and Brad Heritage '06. Coffin and Heritage accounted for 62 of the Big Green's 165 goals in 2006.
"[Underclassmen] are going to be very important, considering only Nick Bonacci '07 and Brian Koch have serious game experience," captain Ryan O'Connor '07 said. "Other than that, our offense is made up primarily of freshmen and sophomores."
Dartmouth held UMass without a goal for the entire second half, which included a third-period shutout in which the Minutemen's starters were still in the game.
"It felt like we had the ball for 75 to 80 percent of the game," Sussman said.
Although an 80 percent possession rate may be an exaggeration, O'Conner emphasized a similar point -- the Big Green offense kept UMass on their heels.
"The biggest reason for [our second half shutout] was probably because of our offense. We had the ball for a five-plus minute possession in the third quarter, controlling the tempo, and really tiring down UMass. When we have the ball, obviously they can't score," O'Connor said. "When they get the ball back, chances are they really rushed and anxious to get something going and that leads to them making a mistake early in the possession, throw the ball away, pushing a situation where they're not ready to go to the net."
The scrimmage was Dartmouth's last chance to face outside competition before heading to North Carolina next weekend to play Duke and UNC.
"I think it was phenomenally important. UMass was in the championship game last year ... they've been where we want to get to, and playing well against a team of that caliber was phenomenally important for us," O'Connor said.
Koch took a more reserved approach to what the scrimmage win means.
"We can't really read too much into it," he said. "It was definitely a good time beating UMass, but right now we're focused on ourselves and we don't want to dwell too much on [the win] because we don't know what kind of team UMass is going to be this year. Right now we're focused on Duke and taking it one game at a time."
Dartmouth's effort this week was certainly an improvement over last week's scrimmages. Last week, the Big Green faced-off against Siena and Binghamton and finished their weekend with two closely contested scrimmages against weaker competition. This week's effort proved more thorough and will serve as a confidence builder going into next weekend's showdowns.
"Our coaches were certainly encouraged by how hard we played, and we executed all over the field. We still didn't do everything perfectly and that's what we strive for and whether or not that's attainable, we will certainly find out. They were pleased. Now we just have to keep working hard this week in preparation for Duke," O'Connor said.
As far as strategies for success go, the Big Green is going to have to evade the hype that will surround their trip to Durham. Dartmouth will be the Blue Devils' first opponent since their 2006 season was cancelled eight games in.
"Against Duke, a major thing is going to be our ability to block everything out and just focus because if we play our game we can beat anybody, so with Duke coming up obviously there's going to be a lot of media there, but if we play our game we're going to be hard to beat," Koch said.
The Big Green takes on Duke in Durham, N.C., on Saturday, Feb. 24 at 2 p.m. on ESPNU before traveling to nearby Chapel Hill, N.C., to play UNC on Sunday, Feb. 25 at noon.
