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NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPMay 26, 2013John DanowskiJake TripuckaJordan WolfPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA JOHN DANOWSKI: Good morning, everyone. Last night after we watched the Denver‑Syracuse game, coaches went back to the hotel and we were grading the film. We had an 11:00 meeting with our players, and just about the time‑‑ we didn't do this on purpose, but we timed it so the fourth quarter, we were just about ready to grade the fourth quarter when the team came in. So last night we watched our fourth quarter only with our team as we tried to put yesterday's game to bed last night before the guys obviously went to bed. And so the memory we wanted for our guys to prepare for was the fourth quarter with Cornell taking it to us 7‑2, so the lesson is that this game on Monday is going to be a 60‑minute game. Syracuse, No.1 seed, deservedly so, playing great as a team, extremely unselfish on offense, athletic defensively, and it's a great opportunity for our young men. Q. Jordan, just kind of curious, you passed the 50‑goal mark the other day. What's been different for you offensively and kind of in the scheme of things this year that's allowed you to have the sort of season you've had? JORDAN WOLF: Really nothing much, it's just a testament to our offense. We're very unselfish, we move the ball great, we share, we've been playing together for a long time and it's a blast, and we're really not too concerned with who's scoring as long as we're all scoring. That's kind of been our philosophy all year. Q.  John, Fowler breaks the face‑off record. How does he stack up against some of the guys you've had? JOHN DANOWSKI: By far, by far. Somewhat unexpected, although maybe it shouldn't have been. Brendan had taken 150 draws both his freshman and sophomore year, and if you do look back at the stats he was at 50 percent each year. But he's a two‑sport guy. He came off a broken clavicle last year in the Syracuse game where he broke his clavicle clean through and had to rehab all summer and played some football and got some special teams reps at the end of the year, but Brendan has far exceeded our expectations, and we just marvel at his resiliency and toughness week in and week out. Q. Jordan, what did you see in that tape last night? JORDAN WOLF: I thought that we started off a little slow, but we have great senior leadership and a lot of maturity and we kind of settled down a little bit. We made a run and Cornell is a great team with great players so they unexpectedly made a run, also. We were just fortunate to hold them off at the end. Q. You've been working with the defense this year. It seems the execution in yesterday's game, you guys were able to accomplish what you wanted to do. Where from your perspective are you with that unit and how is it working with that unit this year? JOHN DANOWSKI: It's been a lot of fun. They are‑‑ it's a work in progress. Joe Cinoski is a first‑year assistant coach, so they had to get used to us, we had to get used to them a little bit on that side of the ball. But I thought in the box defensively we did a great job for three quarters. One was having possession of the ball always helps you playing defense. But for three quarters‑‑ in the fourth quarter we just seemed to maybe just run out of a little bit of gas a little bit, a couple of bad decisions, but overall we thought in the box defensively we were fine. Certainly man down kids did a good job yesterday, and Cornell's early offense we gave up a couple low‑angle shots and a couple of plays where you have to kind of tip your cap. But overall, again, we're a work in progress and we've got to continue to get better before Monday. Q. For both players, what challenges do Syracuse present to what you like to run and how does your effort and results against Cornell kind of feed into your mental preparation? JORDAN WOLF: Yeah, Syracuse is a great team. They've got great individual players, got great coaching. They're playing tomorrow for a reason, so they're going to be ready to go, and we're just going to keep doing what we've been doing all year and stick to what got us here. JAKE TRIPUCKA: Yeah, I definitely think that Syracuse has a lot of individual players that can dominate match‑ups, so I think it's going to be going back to basics and doing what we do best to try and crack their defense, but their defense is very good, and we're going to have our hands full. Q. Coach, yesterday Coach Tierney said that the Syracuse team might not have the Gates or the Powells, but it seems like Marasco, Maltz, Cometti, they seem to get it done somehow, they all do a little bit. What is your plan to kind of keep them in check? JOHN DANOWSKI: I think watching them the last two weeks, watching the Yale game live and watching yesterday in person, you have to marvel at their poise. They don't get rattled. They're down, they're not‑‑ they weren't extremely productive. They scored four goals against Yale early and get shut out for two quarters but then don't get rattled and win the game and advance. Yesterday their only lead at the end was at the end. I missed the first quarter, but you've got to really marvel at their poise, maturity, and then confidence. Ultimately their confidence. When you're talking about teams, everybody wants to write about individuals or‑‑ they're a team. That's your greatest opponent is a team. Individuals can sometimes have a bad day, can hit the pipe, have a fight with their girlfriend the night before. But teams are tough to defend, and that's why they're the No.1 seed, and that's why they're still alive. Q. John, you guys knocked out Syracuse last year, but do you feel this is even remotely the same team? JOHN DANOWSKI: That's so long ago. I don't remember the games. Just as the early in the season is so long ago. You evolve, every team is on their own path. Certainly Syracuse is on their own path. I couldn't tell you what went on in terms of their dynamics. But injuries and leadership and‑‑ they've got a lot of guys back from last year, and just a different‑‑ it's a different team and a different season. It's unimportant to Monday for us. Q. I think a lot of people expected Christian Walsh to be big for you on attack. He shifts down to midfield for you guys this year. How instrumental is he and especially his willingness to change position to your success on offense this year? JAKE TRIPUCKA: Yeah, he's been extremely unselfish as far as switching from attack to midfield, and I think it just helps Dave and I play with him because he knows the game so well, it's just an easy transition. He can play just about any position, and it's been huge for us having another guy out there who can play. Q. For Jake and then Jordan, can you talk about after the 2‑4 start, could you guys have envisioned yourselves being at this stage of the tournament? JAKE TRIPUCKA: It was kind of far off. 2‑4 was definitely a big hole, but again, it's just‑‑ our seniors made sure that the rest of the guys knew that we were just going to keep battling, keep fighting, trust our coaches and go back to what we do and just hope that a bounce goes our way and hopefully we can come out of it. But to say that we expected to come back here, I couldn't say that. JORDAN WOLF: Yeah, it's really just a testament to our seniors.  Our senior class is unbelievable. They've been all year. Our backs were really against the wall at that time and they challenged all of us, our coaches challenged all of us, and like Jake said, we just wanted to keep fighting and go out battling every single day and keep it up in practice and eventually it paid off, and it turned out to do so. Q. John, with the parity in college lacrosse today, you guys have made seven Final Fours in a row. No one else has been even close to that since the tournament expanded to 16 teams. How have you been able to stay so successful in that span? JOHN DANOWSKI: You know, I don't know how to answer the question. We have great young men. They are terrific athletes. They are extremely compliant. By any standard, whether it's‑‑ school is not an issue, the academic piece is not an issue for us. You know, they work really hard. We have a great support staff in the weight room, we have a physical therapist and athletic trainers and team doctors, so guys don't get hurt. They're at practice every day. They work really hard. And so it makes it easy. You just show up and coach every day. We don't look at what we did in the past. Again, that's not how we choose to live. But we just choose to come to work every day, and in that setting it makes it easier to coach for sure. Q. Coach, you made the point about the team play for Syracuse, but how important has JoJo Marasco been for them and how do you plan to defend him and how he spreads the ball around unselfishly? JOHN DANOWSKI: You know, every team has a key player, but yet you want to defend their entire team. Marasco has fabulous numbers, especially for a midfielder, his assists, and guys know when to time their cuts off him and they have a great synergy together. They have a great team dynamic when he has the ball. But you've got to defend the whole team. If you spend too much time ball watching or too much time paying attention to one person, I think in a day's notice, which is what we have to prepare for this game, you've got to stay true‑‑ the guys have referred to it, you've got to stay true to your fundamentals. So defensively we've got to be really fundamentally solid. We've got to be athletic on the ball, and we've got to end up making some saves. Q. Can you talk a bit about the evolution of Kyle Turri, how he filled in for Dan in the beginning of the season and then growing to 16 saves yesterday? JOHN DANOWSKI: Well, as a freshman Kyle played a bunch. He played three or four games when Danny was injured as a junior, so when it was time for Kyle to take over when Danny had to step down, it wasn't absolutely new territory for him. It's been well‑documented that Kyle has won a state championship in high school. He was on the under‑19 team that won the gold medal in Finland this past summer and gained a lot of experience, and Kyle is a winner. His dad is a coach, his older brother played here at Duke, so he's been around lacrosse his whole life, and he understands the game. He picks off passes, he runs out of the cage and can get ground balls. He can do a lot of different things. He's not just a stopper. Yesterday was his best game of his career, and the hope is that that is his new baseline, that that wasn't his, quote, "best game of the season", that he continues, that he'll grow in confidence from that game, and that's what we're going to somewhat demand of him. If we're going to be successful, we're going to need great goalie play on Monday. Q. You've discussed the team element for Syracuse, but for you guys do you feel like that is one of your defining traits, as well, and if so, was that more difficult, less difficult, the same as usual to develop compared to past seasons? JOHN DANOWSKI: You know, every year when you start your team in August, we always say that our offensive guys, to our attack men, can you get two goals a game. If you can get two goals a game, one a half, every attack man is going to score 40 goals if you play 20 games. We say to our midfielders, can every midfielder get one goal a game, six middies, and all of a sudden you're at 12 goals a game, and it doesn't seem so‑‑ it doesn't seem so daunting to score‑‑ coach, I can get one goal a game, and that's always the ideal. And the ideal is on a coach's wish list, I want a balanced team and a team that shares the ball and is unselfish, and every year it doesn't always work out that way. Some years you have four offensive midfielders, some years maybe it's only three or you have an inside guy or you have to kind of do with what you have. But this year we've been blessed with six really athletic midfielders. Our two freshmen, while they didn't score yesterday, have 26 goals between them. I've never had‑‑ we've never coached a team where two freshmen midfielders have scored 26 goals. We've had tremendous balance from day one, and yesterday was nine different individuals getting goals and eight different individuals getting assists. Q. Jake, Syracuse is coming to the ACC next year. How much potential do you think there is on such a big stage to jump start a rivalry between you two guys? JAKE TRIPUCKA: Yeah, I'm actually kind of jealous that I won't be able to play them in the ACC. Unfortunately it would probably be pretty fun. But they're going to pose a huge test for anybody in the ACC. They're going to hang with just about anybody. Obviously they're in the championship game this year. I think at least they want to play that up‑tempo style just like UVA or UNC, so I think they're going to fit in just right in the ACC. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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