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NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIPMay 28, 2017Cole AikensJ.B. ClarkeRyan MaciejewskiKevin ReismanBoston, Massachusetts Limestone - 11, Merrimack - 9 J.B. CLARKE: Thanks, everyone, for sticking around. Really remarkable day for our college and Division II lacrosse and this senior class. We couldn't be more honored to play in a venue like this. The experience that this opportunity gives to our student-athletes is second to none, and we're proud to represent Limestone College here, especially on Memorial Day weekend, and we're very grateful for all that's done by our military to allow us to play these games. I'd be remiss if I didn't start by praising Merrimack. I thought that was one heck of a lacrosse team. They really took it to us about a month-and-a-half ago, I guess, up in Baltimore, and they deserved that win in that game. They were tough and had us real worried going into this. But on to us, this senior class finishes their career with 81 wins and four losses, and I'm not sure that'll be ever replicated. But we couldn't be more proud of our senior class. These 12 young men really fought today and throughout the season. We're very proud of them. Obviously the three guys up here had great days, but this one is a full senior class and program win, and we're very, very proud. Q. Kevin, I wanted to know in the third quarter you went 7 for 7 on the face-offs. What do you think went right for you in that span? KEVIN REISMAN: Watched a lot of film on them this time. The past time -- last time we played them in a game I didn't really watch that much film, so didn't really know what their wings were going to do, and my wing play was stout like it was in the semifinal against Tampa. They were picking up GBs that I wasn't picking up, so it was awesome. People like Jordan Stouros shifted the game. He picked up that GB and went right down and scored off a face off, a nice face off. I popped the forward and we scored off of that. I think that really got to them, and it was like that two years ago when we played Le Moyne, we had a face off where I popped it to one of my wing guys, just another wing guy doing his job. So my wing play was stout today. Unbelievable. Q. Kevin, after how last year's final went, just how meaningful is it to wrap up a career with that sort of performance? KEVIN REISMAN: It's unbelievable, like Coach Clarke just said, this senior group, we kind of came together after last year, a heartbreaking season, like what we thought was one of the best teams in Division II history last year, but we kind of fell apart towards the end of the season. So this season we just knew the seniors, this is our team. Like Coach said, this is our team. We needed to make sure we don't fall apart. We have to stay the course, and that's what we did today. Q. Your thoughts on their crowd today, because clearly being a team in state, did you guys feel like you responded well? RYAN MACIEJEWSKI: I'd like to give credit to our crowd, actually. Our crowd wasn't as big as theirs being like their drive is much shorter, obviously, for most of them. And our crowd was behind us the whole way and never gave up. COLE AIKENS: They were definitely very loud, very supportive of their team. Our crowd was right there behind us, but they made it tough to try to run our defense or try to talk to the whole team, but I think we definitely found a way to grind through. Q. Ryan, I know you guys have many, many options on that offense but I think it was nine different guys scored today. How much is that kind of a reflection of your offensive identity being able to hurt people in a number of different ways and doing it in different ways, whether it's in transition or extended possessions? RYAN MACIEJEWSKI: People like Charlie obviously draw a lot of credit, well, a lot of attention, I guess, because he just had an outstanding season the last two seasons. So I just try to stick to what the coaches tell me to do and get to the right spots and all the fellas find me. I just do my job and credit the other five people out on the field. Q. Given how the last four years have gone, how much are you going to miss No. 13, especially after he has a game like that to wrap it up? J.B. CLARKE: Is he gone already? Tremendous player, really good person. He's done a lot to help our younger guys learn how to be better face-off men, and remarkably enough, our next two guys are both over 70 percent facing off on the year, as well. So Kevin's legacy will be long-lasting, I think, what he's done for those two young men. You know, with Kevin, the team spends so much time and energy focusing on Kevin, and they put three long-stick middies out there at one time today. I don't know if they did it a bunch, but he did a great job this year of working harder with the wing guys and allowing them to help him more than they have in the past. In the past he's been more focused on him getting the ball, and this year he did a really, really good job of allowing the wing guys to help him more. There were a few times today where he got the clamp, and like literally out of the back of his stick threw it back to the wing guy. I think that -- and Coach Carroll Kennedy, who runs our defense but also works with Kevin and the wing guys had a great plan going into the day, and they focused a lot on Merrimack's wing play. Like Kevin said, he watched a lot on their face-off guy, but to his credit, Kevin credited his wing guys, but there's not going to be another guy -- I think he's the second four-time all-American in Limestone history, two-time Player of the Year. I don't think we've had one of those. So I'm going to miss him. I probably won't sleep well tonight because of that. Q. How much did last year's loss feed into the focus of this team going into the season? Did it provide any different perspective to make this run and to get to this game and win this game? J.B. CLARKE: I think it did. We tried not to talk too much about last year. It's interesting, this summer I -- in the search for answers, I called Coach Tierney because I remember watching Coach Tierney in Denver and their upset at the hands of Towson at home in the quarterfinals a year ago, and I wanted to get his perspective on how much time he spent talking about last year with his current team and could we be talking about it too much. His advice was, you'll feel -- your gut will tell you when you're talking about it too much. We got through the fall and we talked about it a lot, but once we got to January 1st we didn't bring it up, and they didn't bring it up. I think they'd heard enough about it, and they wanted to be different. They learned their lessons from it. I learned my lessons from it. I have to take all the responsibility for not playing great on this day a year ago. But these guys turned that around, and with probably a less talented team across the board. I mean, somebody said it, we had nine guys score goals today. That's unbelievable. What did we have, 11? That's something else. That's team lacrosse. And I said earlier in the week that I thought this team might be better, and what I meant by that was that this group of kids with a little bit less talent was playing harder at this time of year. Q. I know you guys allowed 18 previously earlier in the year to Merrimack, and they're the only team who had given your record a blemish. What kind of adjustments did you make heading into this one? J.B. CLARKE: Really to be honest with you, we didn't change our game plan very much. They set a lot of picks for guys. They had big, strong athletes coming over the top on you. We didn't cover that very well in the first game. This time we had a little bit more time to prepare. We'd seen it, and I thought that -- we rotated two guys on their big lefty attack man, No. 6, Charlie Bertrand, who's fabulous. He's going to be a thorn in everybody's side for the next three years. What a player. So we rotated two guys on him, and we had to concentrate a lot on him, and we knew that some of the other guys would hurt us if we did that. But we also didn't ride them, and we concentrated on getting in play a little bit of half-field defense. They rode us a bunch. We scored our first goal, I think, off their ride. I thought we cleared it very well against a very aggressive ride, and I was very proud of our guys. We showed a lot of poise in that area. And while I say we didn't ride them, we still rode hard. We turned and ran to the midline, tried to ride them there so that they didn't get any transition going over the top on us. So really those are the biggest adjustments that we made X's and O's wise. But our goalie had 13 saves. He was phenomenal today, and all the credit to him, and Kevin who was 17-7 on the face-offs. You get 12 saves and win 10 more face-offs than your opponent, more often than not you're going to win the game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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