Schedule 2026

[Cluck U]

From inside Lacrosse:

Every D1 team in one sentence:

https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/ ... ence/66165

Two independent clauses, separated by a semi-colon...smart way to keep it to, by definition, a, "single" sentence.

Cluck: you paid good attention in high school English class.

Attention wasn't my strong suit...Look! Squirrel!!!!

Loved Mrs. Cope, though. Old school. Tough, but fair. I listened and learned, even though it didn't always seem that way.

[Cluck U]

9-8 loss to Lehigh.

The bad:

We lost a lot of face offs. Didn't lose them all cleanly...just got beat too often in the scrums.

We had a lot of trouble clearing against their 10-man ride. Frustrating. A parent said that has been a problem. Definitely not solved today.

Our D gave Lehigh's attack too many open shots from close range.

Not much speed on our side...seemed slow compared to Lehigh's guys. They challenged our guys waaaay outside when we were on offense, and we didn't have a guy who could make them pay for that.

Attendance, by my count, was just over 110. Gotta' hand it to the lacrosse parents...they tailgate in any weather.

The good:

Club was open...free for the scrimmage. Was a nice place to go for warmth and some anti-freeze at halftime.

Lacrosse parents are awesome.

Goalie look good at times.

Physical team...but Lehigh us gave some of that back, too.

I'll sleep on the scrimmage. But, we have to get better on O and on clearing or this will be a blah year.

[LILax]

I wasn’t quite as negative about the scrimmage. I agree that the Hens faceoffs were abysmal. They won just one faceoff in the first half. The defense played extremely well and Aidan Koff made some really terrific saves to keep it to just 5-3 at half. The other story of that first half was the Lehigh goalie making 10 saves by my count. Some spectacular and a few pedestrian. UD moved the ball nicely on offense and got off some nice shots. They hit seven posts by my count in the game.

Lehigh didn’t really stop the Hens with a 10 man ride. I don’t want to credit the 10 man ride because Lehigh only ran it twice against our starters. the other rides were normal rides when the hens simply missed easy pass opportunities by rushing. Completely unforced. On the other side Lehigh turned the ball over just as much, if not more, than the hens on their clears. It was a typical sloppy January scrimmage.

I sat with Lehigh friends who complained about the lack of speed and creativity on their side. They pointed to the speed of the Delaware defenders specifically of the SSDMs like Ryder Buell and freshman Finn Rogers. They also mentioned the advantage that UD had on attack with McCurry (2 goals) Parmer (1 goal) and Powers (2 goals). They admired the slickness, quickness and creativity those three showed around the cage.

Hens will need to figure out faceoffs. Freshman Scott Conte won a bunch in the second half. But that was against Lehigh backups.

Some work to do on ground balls and clears. Delaware looked very athletic but a little too excitable at times. Man down unit was fifth worst in D1 last year. Didn’t look any better tonight. Lehigh was 1 for 1. We shall see how that shakes out.

[Big R]

Thanks to both of you guys for your report. Much appreciated.

[LILax]

Thought I would provide more details for anyone interested.

Delaware played its final tune up at home yesterday against Lehigh in a game that was marked by sloppy play and excellent goaltending on both sides. Kasey Heath showed amazing athleticism in the nearly three quarters that he played in net for Lehigh. I lost count of saves but it was above ten by the time he left late in the third quarter. The Hens' Aidan Koff had plenty of outstanding saves as well for the three full quarters he played in net. While many of the saves for both goalies were athletic in nature, others were the result of quick or forced shots as both teams seemed a bit antsy on the offensive side of the field. The Hens hit 7 posts throughout the game by my count. Lots of opportunities but only accounted for 8 goals.

I lost count on turnovers for both teams, but most were in the middle of the field during transition to offense. Seemed like one of those games where both teams were desperately trying to push transition in clears when a settled approach would have been more prudent. The third quarter ended in a 7-7 tie before all of the starters were replaced. The final score was 9-8 with Lehigh coming up on top.

Aside from the goaltending, Lehigh's Richard Checo stood out on defense for the Mountain Hawks. He will certainly be a candidate again this year for first team AA at LSM. Dude is a magician. The Lehigh offense ran through Luke Breslin and had some nice moments including a goal with no time left on the clock in the second quarter to go up 5-3 at half time. The Hens first half goals came from Brendan Powers, Bennett Parmer and Finn Morgan who is adjusting to playing midfield.

The Hens came out hot in the third quarter with three straight goals, two from John McCurry on wing dodges and one from Jack Kolbe on an outside snipe, to take a 6-5 lead. The Hens threatened to take a bigger lead with a penalty that followed that goal. But the Hens lost the ensuing faceoff and Lehigh scored a shorthanded goal with the 1 minute penalty clicking down on an ill-fated double team that left a wide open shot to tie the game at six. To exacerbate this mistake, the Hens took a late hit penalty that gave the Mountain Hawks a man-up opportunity with no faceoff. Lehigh quickly converted that into a 7-6 lead as the UD man-down defense continued its futility from last year where they finished fifth from the bottom in man-down efficiency.

Brendan Powers scored his second goal to tie the game at 7-7 to end the third quarter.

Hens face-off unit was absymal losing all but one of the face-offs in the first half. Coach DeLuca brought in freshman Scott Conte in the second half and he fared much better, but that was against the Lehigh back-ups. So there is no telling how bad the Hens will be at the face-off dot this year.

Overall a decent showing for both teams. I am sure both coaches have long lists of things they need to improve on. Lehigh and Delaware are both top 4 teams in their respective conferences, So I would expect both teams to compete in their conference playoffs this year. Lots of work to do. Hens open next weekend against Utah at home. We shall see.

Finally, Freshman top 50 recruit Matt Triolo came into the game in the 4th quarter and had a +100MPH snipe from outside for his first goal. He is a very large lefty that probably needs to work on his footwork and ball handling a bit. But has tons of potential.

[Cluck U]

Thanks, LIL. Great, detailed summary (as always).

After sleeping, things feel a bit better. We only let up only 9 goals, so that is a good start. The 8 on our side still concerns me...as do the turnovers. That's what practice is for.

Fun note: Lehigh has a player named Finn Morgan. He scored a goal in the first half and a few of us were perplexed when the scorer's name was announced. We expected a correction later. When our Finn Morgan scored, we joked that it was his second goal. A UD parent we were with looked up the Lehigh roster and we all had an, "Ah-ha" moment.

About those sloppy turnovers in the middle of the field as we tried to clear...what was frustrating was that our guys made poor decisions across the board, often trying to go through 2-3 Lehigh players single-handedly with our head down...not even looking to pass. It made for some awesome physical collisions, but not so good for retaining possession. When a pass did happen, it was, often a poor pass into more traffic. The parent I was with said he had seen that problem too often from these guys and the team/coach is aware of it and working on it.

It reminds me of the issues some teams have with the press in basketball. Practice...but it takes a mental toughness and awareness of spacing, too.

Happy we have an indoor place to practice until we get the snow off the field.

Forecast for next week's opener has improved. Low now 14 with a high of 26...and sunny.

[BlueHenBill]

UD with FO problems again! This seems to be too often a problem with DeLica's teams. Primataj and O J Morris were both very good FO men for UD last season but both graduated. FR Matt Warburton was the only other player who took any FOs for UD in 2025. Michael Straub (now a Sr) and Nolan Burger (now a Jr) were the other FO men on last year's roster. The FO men on UD's 2026 roster are Warburton, Straub, and Burger with Fr Scott Conte who played well in the second half against Lehigh's reserve FO players. Who started the scrimmage for UD vs. Lehigh and had poor results?

[Cluck U]

Not going to name a person and hang him out to dry when he was giving his best.

I can say, as I did previously, that there were not many faceoffs that were won/lost cleanly where the opponent was able to run down the field. Many resulted in loose balls and scrums and we simply didn’t come up with the ball, so it was a team/unit result. The effort was there…we just didn’t get the ball. Definitely have to improve on our FOs, and get more practice scooping up ground balls while getting whacked.

[BlueHenBill]

Not going to name a person and hang him out to dry when he was giving his best.

I can say, as I did previously, that there were not many faceoffs that were won/lost cleanly where the opponent was able to run down the field. Many resulted in loose balls and scrums and we simply didn’t come up with the ball, so it was a team/unit result. The effort was there…we just didn’t get the ball. Definitely have to improve on our FOs, and get more practice scooping up ground balls while getting whacked.

I wasn't going to throw rocks at him. I am just curious as to who was (and maybe will be? going forward?) the starter at FO.