On the team’s Week 10 loss against the Boston Cannons
“We expected a tough opponent playing hard to kick themselves into the playoff picture and that’s exactly what we got. It was a great lacrosse game, an exciting evening. We had a large crowd, a large supportive crowd. There was a lot of energy in the stadium. Boston played very well, we played very well. It was back and forth, a couple of times I thought we had them, to their credit they made some plays down the stretch and got a little bit of distance on us at the very end. It was a tough loss, it was a game certainly we felt good about winning. We felt good about how we played. We were a little disappointed we didn’t make some plays down the stretch that we typically do make.”
On if he expects the guys competing in FIL World Lacrosse Championships to be available for Sundays’ game
“They’re all going to be in Denver. We will have all of the players from the World Championships in town and available. I think we’re going to have to make some game-time decisions regarding all of them in terms of are they nicked up from play? Are they too tired mentally or physically? So we will have extra players in town as well. We’ll make a lot of those decisions at the last minute depending on who plays on Saturday night. The assumption is that it will be USA against Canada (in the Championship). We’ve got a lot of players involved on both of those teams. We’ll have to take a look at it, but we’ll have everybody available and in town.”
On if he’s been following the World Lacrosse Championships
“I’ve been watching. I’m actually going to be going up (to Denver) tomorrow morning so I’ll be at the semifinals tomorrow night through the championship game on Saturday. But I’ve been tracking them and seeing some great lacrosse.
On this Sunday’s matchup against the Florida Launch
“One of the things that did surprise us about them was the last minute trade they made involving [midfielder] Kevin Crowley and bringing [midfielder] David Earl and [midfielder] Jon Hayes and [midfielder] Steven Brooks, so they’re going to be a little bit different than what we saw last time. Obviously not having to deal with Crowley doesn’t disappoint me. We’ll see him later. They’re a tough team. We’re going to have a lot of guys that have played a lot of lacrosse these past weeks and whether or not they’ve got anything left in the tank, we’re going to have to evaluate. We’re going to have to prepare and play a good game against a team that’s struggling to stay in the playoff race. Those are the teams that usually bring their best and we’ve got to expect that.”
On the motivation from guys like Drew Snider and Jeremy Sieverts that were on the bubble to make Team USA“Oh yeah. I thought that in the Boston game both Snider and Sieverts—who were two of the later guys cut from the U.S. team—played awfully, awfully well. [John Grant] Junior had a good game because he learned the night before that he wasn’t going to able to play for Canada. We do have our whole attack back—[Eric] Law, [Chris] Bocklet, and Grant—so we’re in pretty good shape there, then add Snider and Sieverts. Defensively, [Lee] Zink and [Dillon] Roy are both involved (in Worlds) so we’ll have to see what they’ve got left. The one nice thing about the US team is that they’ve haven’t played a lot of defense this tournament. They’ve had the ball so much (on offense), so hopefully Lee will be reasonably fresh, but we’ll see. They’ve still got some big games left. Jesse is playing awfully well for Team USA. We’ll have to see where he’s at the conclusion of the World Games. But we feel good about it. [Anthony] Kelly has been resting. He wasn’t involved (in Worlds) so he’s had two weeks off. We feel good about a lot of those factors.”
On what he’s seen from Jeremy Noble playing for Team Canada
“It’s interesting that you noted that Jeremy played attack for Team Canada, because that did catch our attention. The thing about Jeremy is that he does everything so well. He did so much for the University of Denver—playing wing on the faceoff and (defensive midfielder), he was the ball distributor on their extra-man offense. We’ve thought about using him in a lot of those ways. One of the issues we’ve had is that we’re not man-up on offense very much, for whatever reason. We’ve only got an average of one or two man-up situations in a game, so it’s hard to do too much using him there. If we had a need at attack, he certainly would be a candidate for it if we had an injury or something like that. We feel okay right now with who we have there. But if he’s physically and mentally ready to go after the World Games conclude, then he’ll certainly be in the lineup on Sunday and we’ll expect a lot from him and use him in a lot of different ways. We wish he would shoot more, he doesn’t shoot a lot. But he’s a wonderful passer and finds the open man. He can handle the ball under pressure.”
On goalie Jesse Schwartzman
“Jesse is if not the key, then certainly one of the very key players in our lineup. We need and expect a big night out of him every time he steps on the field, he usually delivers. He’s playing very, very well right now, but like I earlier they’re playing about five games in six days or something like that. That’s an awful lot with a lot of pressure on him. So again, we’ll probably have a lot of conversation with Jesse over the weekend and on Sunday just to see how he’s feeling. We’ll have a backup plan ready if we need to, but hopefully not. We’re going to need him at his best to continue playing and hopefully get ourselves into the playoff picture and ultimately and hopefully a Championship.”