Just wanted to link to my post on Inside Lacrosse.  We traveled from Raleigh to Boston today.  

OK, I gotta seriously get to bed. 

Tomorrow, I will be flying off with the Duke men’s lacrosse team for Boston. For those not “in the know”, Duke will be playing in the Final Four this year at Gillette Stadium. Saturday at 2:30pm, they will play Johns Hopkins in a rematch of the 2007 (and 2005) championship game, only this time in the semifinals. Should Duke win, they will play either Syracuse or Virginia. 

I’m traveling as part of the Duke entourage, but also as a photographer for Inside Lacrosse. On the Inside Lacrosse Blogs, I’ll be posting some in-depth information about Duke as they make their run for the title. It’s going to be a fun weekend.  

So Duke Lacrosse did a number on Ohio State last Sunday in a 21-10 win, a score that doesn’t really reflect how lopsided the game was.  In the fourth quarter, Duke pretty much shut down their offense and stopped taking shots.  Otherwise, the score would have been far worse. On the bus ride from Duke to the airport, I was sitting beside longpole Parker McKee talking about Ohio State. I recounted how my Heels lost to them in Baltimore earlier this season and said I predicted a strong start by the Buckeyes.  My prediction was for them to be up at the end of the first quarter, maybe half, but Duke then coming back to win it.

Well, I was right about the Buckeyes starting strong.  They scored first to make the score 0-1, scoring off an EMO (btw, how does Sam Payton get hit with a delay of game when the game was only 10 seconds in? I missed the call as my camera was focused elsewhere).  I was also right that Duke would come out after the Buckeyes strong start and win the game.  What I had very wrong was how long it would take Duke to come back — it ended up not taking long at all.  At the 10:39 left on the clock in the first, the officials could have stopped there when Brad Ross scored to put Duke up 2-1.  Duke would never be down again and would not stop the carnage until the score was 10-1.  Congrats to OSU though for their great success this summer.  It is great to see a midwest team get some serious respect in the lacrosse world. 

The entire game was rainy and cold.  Pretty miserable to photograph.  But the photos usually look fun in the end: Lots of sliding goes on during these games.  Too bad it wasn’t a muddy and grassy field.  Photos from those games look awesome!

Here’s a link to my photos from the game:  Duke Lacrosse vs. Ohio State Photos

I was up in Ithaca, NY with the Duke Lacrosse team as they played Ohio State in the NCAA Quarterfinals, hosted by Cornell University.  This is the second year in a row that Duke has not had to play the host school after the host was jettisoned in the first round.  When Duke traveled to Annapolis last year, UNC dispatched Navy, matching Duke instead with UNC.  This year, Ohio State took out the Cornell Big Red before Cornell had a chance to play Duke at their home.

The trip was a lot of fun.  We flew by private charter which was very spoiling.

I posted some behind-the-scenes photos of the trip on Inside Lacrosse’s blog site.  Here are the links:

May 17th: Preparation before Ohio State

May 18th: Gameday vs. Ohio State

If you are looking for action photos, check out the gallery on goduke.com.

Eventually, I will have all the photos posted on my website.

Thursday I am shipping up to Boston with the team.  I’m pretty stoked.

I was reading blog comments on Inside Lacrosse, and came across this gem (see the second comment). Here a commenter discusses a young 1960 Naval Academy lacrosse team.  What an amazing story this is:

As a foremost authority on the history of lacrosse, allow me to point out what happened in the spring of 1960 when a young Navy team, led by captains Greg Becker and Stu Besch, came back from 15 goals down in the national semifinal game versus Harvard [I think he meant Hopkins here]. Navy’s goalie from the previous year, a portly hard-drinking plebe named Walt Wasileff, was shipped off to Korea, where he lost a foot and part of his hand after an explosion on the deck of his aircraft carrier. He was replaced by a young Lou Rawls (yes, that Lou Rawls, soul singer and star of many telethons), but unfortunately for Lou, Hopkins had no sympathy and poured in 13 first half goals as revenge for Wasileff’s shutting them out for the first time ever a year before.

At half time, trailing 13-0, the Navy players were already thinking of going home for a few weeks, checking up on mom and dad, and then heading off to war. Lacrosse seemed less and less important as the reality of war began to hit home. Five of their teammates from the 1957 team never came home from the war, and nobody was sure Wasileff would ever come home either. Last the team had heard, Walt was touch and go, clinging to life.

So when they heard a familiar voice growing nearer, in full sprint from the parking lot, already dressed in a uniform from the year before (a white one, and not Navy’s road blues), the Navy men thought they were seeing a ghost. After a lot of hugs and handshakes, Walt asked Low Rawls if he would mind coming out of the game. Lou calmly took off his jersey, handed it to Walt and said “You’ll need this…brother.”

Walt was carried into the goal, much to the amazement of Hopkins and their faithful fans. The first shot on Walt went in, and the second one trickled through his legs. “Zoinks!” he exclaimed. “That’s the last goal you ever every score against me Hopkins!!”

And he was right. Navy scored once. Then again, And again and again and again. With the score 15-14 Hopkins, and only fifteen seconds left, all hope seemed lost for the Navy men. But upon winning the face-off, Walt limped into the offensive zone with his big goalie stick, took a pass from Becker, then a deep breath, and fired a laser shot at the Hopkins goal. Ping! Ping! Off two goalposts and into the net!! In overtime, Navy attacker Besch scored a goal to give the Middies the victory in a game nobody will ever forget.

Wow.

Update: May 15, 208 - 6:00pm

Another commenter has cast doubts on the statements made by the previous commenters.  They assert the following:

* There were no playoffs back then so I don’t know where semifinals come from.
* Freshmen were not eligible back then, so a plebe goalie [Wasileff] could not have played in 1959.
* Navy beat Hopkins 15-7 in 1960. Possible that we were up 7-0 I guess, but seems unlikely.
* There’s nobody in the Navy all-time roster named Walt Wasileff.

Hmm; so maybe the storybook story is not true after-all. 

[From Mids on a Mission comments.  Inside Lacrosse Blog]

Nope, this isn’t an in-depth article on Zach Greer.  Instead, just wanted to post this photo that I really digged. I’m not sure why I like this photo so much, but here are a few reasons. First, the cloud formation worked out perfectly. The contrast of the blue sky with the green grass also looks great. Second, the lighting is near perfect. The sun was not high up in the sky, and thus no hard shadows were cast except a little under his eyes. Third, I like the depth the photo has. Starting in the back, the background in out-of-focus (OOF). Then, his face is in focus, but his left hand, closest to the camera, is OOF. So the OOF background and foreground, with an in focus center part of the photo add something special to the photo. This was done with a wide angle lens and I was probably about only 18 inches from him when I took this photo. One benefit of working at a school frequently is you get to know the players. While I’m comfortable taking a photo like this of someone like Zach that I know or one of the UNC players, I wouldn’t be as comfortable doing this with a player I didn’t know, or more importantly with a player who didn’t know me, beforehand. It requires getting really close to pull of. Finally, the left hand looks larger than the face, giving the illusion that the viewer is very close rather than looking from a distance.

I am kicking myself, kicking myself, kicking myself for not doing something like this with one of the UNC players. Oh well. I will probably use this idea in the future if I ever so an outdoor portrait with a player.

First, I wanted to send a congratulations to Duke senior Zach Greer.  Last weekend, he broke a 28 record to become that all-time leading goal scorer in the NCAA.  The previous record was 193 goals by NC State’s Stan Cockerton (yup, the Wolfpack used to have varsity lacrosse; I wish they would get it back!).  If you’re a Duke hater and say that the only reason he broke the reason was because he had a fifth year, then you don’t have your facts straight.  He is actually only in his fourth year, and when you consider that he broke this record after missing many of the 2006 games because of the scandal, his record breaking performance is even more impressive. 

Sadly, I did not know which goal exactly would be his record-breaker.  So, when he scored it, I was on the other side of the field and completly missed getting a photo of the moment.  I was with Duke University photographer Jon Gardiner, and we both let out a collective sigh when we realized what we had missed.  (actually I muttered a few four-letter words).  But anyways, congrats to Zach for a remarkable career. 

I have the photos up from the Duke lacrosse vs. St. Johns game.  Here is the link:

Duke Lacrosse vs. St. Johns Photo Gallery

I updated my gallery of some of my favorite lacrosse photos.  This gallery is a work on progress and I’ve really neglected updating it.

I deleted a good number of the photos as well.  I was posting some photos because they contained some of the greats of lacrosse like Brodie Merrill, and less because the photos were good.  So I had a “Come to Jesus” meeting with myself, and hit the delete key a few times.  Here is my updated gallery of lacrosse favorites.

Show some love for the ACC or your favorite school by voting for seniors for the 2008 Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award. Below are the contestants, and where they stand as of 1pm ET on 4/16.  You get 3 votes and can vote once per day.  I obviously voted for Fletcher Gregory at UNC for my first pick.  I was showing some love for Brad Ross but now that he is ahead, I have to be a UNC partisan and not vote for Duke.  My 2nd pick was for the man, the legend, Paul Rabil at Hopkins.  After that, I was neutral for my third vote.

—>> VOTE HERE for Fletcher <<—

Craig Massie (Army)	27%
Ben Rubeor (University of Virginia)	23%
Pat Grimm (Yale University)	16%
Brad Ross (Duke University)	16%
Mike Leveille (Syracuse University)	7%
Fletcher Gregory (University of North Carolina)	3%
Michael Corbolotti (Cornell University)	2%
Paul Rabil (Johns Hopkins)	2%
Tommy Scherr (University of Delaware)	2%
Danny Nathan (Cornell University)	1%

I worked for the good folks at Inside Carolina for the Spring Football game.  The head photographer for Inside Carolina, Jim Hawkins, was stuck in San Antonio still after photographing the Final Four, so I got tried to be Jim for day (I didn’t have the bluetooth earpiece so I couldn’t pull it off.)

Linked are some photos from the game posted on Inside Carolina. [Gallery 1]  [Gallery 2]

Interesting note from after the game.  I had to photograph the post-game press conference in the football facility (which is amazing for those who have not been lucky enough to go in there).  When I left, I was only only the 2nd floor but had to go to 1st to get out.  I was lost and had no idea how to get to the first floor without taking the elevator.  So I hit the down button and prayed that no one would be on the elevator going doing, lest I feel like a lazy oaf.  I hear the elevator slow down to 2nd, the doors fly open, and no one is there but head UNC football coach Butch Davis himself.  ”Crap!” I thought, but he quickly said in a friendly tone “You going down?  Well come on man”.  So whew, embarassment avoided.  In the 10 seconds I was with him in the elevator, plus what I heard of him on the field and in the post-game press conference, I can see why this guy is so well respected.  He’s the kind of coach that players would run through walls for.  They love him, you can tell.

BTW, I’ve lately had close encounters with all three local football coaches in the last two months.  In February, I was in Duke football coach David Cutcliffe’s office photographing him and the Manning brothers.  Last month, I was at the residence of NC State head football coach Tom O’Brien, photographing him and his family for NC State.  Then this encounter with coach Davis.