The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Sunday Gravy: Yale lacrosse adds key transfer
Brandon Morrow, closer for the Cubs, landed on the disabled list after injuring his back while taking off his pants. This is usually the part where we’d tease Morrow for being such a spaz.
But considering I’ve had a fair share of ridiculous DL stints, like the time I threw my back out while lifting an infant or required knee surgery after jumping off a swing set, we’ll refrain.
It’s not easy getting old.
⏩ Kyle Wallack is a tremendous hire for the new hockey program at Albertus Magnus – a Division I coach building a Division III start-up. Wallack has extensive experience as an assistant at Quinnipiac, UConn, Holy Cross, Yale and Vermont over the past 18 years, and been a candidate for several Division I head coaching jobs.
Word is Albertus had conducted interviews and whittled a list of five finalists for the job when basketball coach Mitch Oliver called Wallack three weeks ago to gauge his interest. The two had worked at Quinnipiac together in the mid-1990s. The Albertus administration, particularly college president Marc Camille, is committed to building a national championship-caliber program and that’s what sold Wallack.
He’ll be formally introduced on Monday.
⏩ Yale men’s lacrosse just got a major boost in its effort to defend its national championship. Albany’s T.D. Ierlan, the best faceoff man in the country, is transferring to Yale this fall and will be eligible immediately. He set an NCAA record by winning 79.1 percent of faceoffs last season and will inherit the job vacated by graduated Yale senior Conor Mackie.
⏩ How big of a deal is the World Cup berth in Iceland? Its opening match against Argentina was watched by 99.6 percent of TV viewers in Iceland.
⏩ UConn felt Kevin Ollie deserved to be fired. Few who’ve followed the program the past couple of years would disagree. He wasn’t recruiting well, the team appeared poorly coached and, simply put, weren’t winning.
But the recruiting violations cited by UConn as the reason for Ollie’s firing – and why the school is withholding the money owed to Ollie per his contract – doesn’t add up to justification for $10 million.
The case will now be handled in arbitration. Hard to think Ollie won’t see at least a portion of that money coming his way.
⏩ On this date in 2001 Barry Bonds had 39 home runs on his way to an MLB-record 73. Mike Trout and J.D. Martinez are currently atop the home run leaders list with 23. The difference? You tell me.
⏩ Martinez is a hitting machine who hammers just about everything hard. He’s been everything the Red Sox dreamed and more.
⏩ Golf has some unusual rules. At the U.S. Open last week Phil Mickelson drew the ire of golf writers by racing to putt a moving ball before it rolled off the green. On Friday at the Travelers, Zach Johnson was penalized for waiting too long to hit a moving ball.
The difference, of course, is Mickelson was blatantly breaking the rules. Johnson wasn’t quite sure what to do when he saw his ball, balanced precariously on the lip of the hole, was still rolling ever so slightly.
Mickelson received a two-stroke penalty. Johnson was merely credited with a par rather than a birdie because, by rule, he had to tap-in within 10 seconds of arriving at his ball.
⏩ Two incoming Yale hockey players were taken in the fourth round of Saturday’s NHL Entry Draft. Curtis Hall, a 6-foot-3, 200-pound center from Ohio, went to the Bruins as the 119th overall pick. Jack St. Ivany, also 6-3, 200, is a defenseman from California with strong offensive skills, went to Philadelphia with the 112th overall pick.
⏩ Peter Diliberatore, a defenseman from Nova Scotia and a Quinnipiac commit, was taken by the Vegas Golden Knights in the sixth round.
⏩ Jack Drury, a secondround pick of Carolina on Saturday, grew up in the Chicago suburbs. But the name should sound familiar. His father, Ted, and uncle, Chris, grew up in Trumbull and attended Fairfield Prep before becoming college stars, Olympians and NHL players.
Jack Drury will get a chance to impress folks in Greater New Haven over the next couple of years. But he’ll do it as a member of the opposition. Drury is following in his father’s footsteps and attending Harvard in the fall.
⏩ Juan Carlos Osorio, who’s done a brilliant job in three years as manager of the Mexican national soccer team, graduated from Southern Connecticut State in 1990. He’s got the highest winning percentage of any Mexico coach in the last 80 years, with the team looking like a serious World Cup contender.
⏩ Bubba Watson is a dead ringer for Keith Moon, the old drummer for The Who.