A tough loss, but future is still bright for Yale

PHILADELPHIA — When it was over, after Virginia had turned the highest-scoring offense in NCAA lacrosse tournament history into a ball of frustration, Yale coach Andy Shay settled into his podium chair and carefully gripped life’s perspective.

“I got up this morning and I had to remind myself that if you lose a lacrosse game today, it’s not that big a deal relative to people that lost their lives for our country,” Shay said after Virginia stifled the Eli, 13-9, for the 2019 national championship on Memorial Day. “It’s really hard.

“Saying goodbye to this (senior) class and all, but at the end of the day, it’s still a game. At the end of the day, I still get paid to do this in this country because of people who gave their lives.”

It was a simple and eloquent post-game introductory remark. Of course, we mustn’t confuse athletic heroism for battlefield heroism. We mustn’t ever confuse sacrifice for ultimate sacrifice. Or mix metaphors that “giving it all” on the field of sports could in any way approach the heroic notion, “All gave some, some gave all.”

Still this day, a bad one among the impressive days

of Yale’s rise in lacrosse, was a difficult day.

The Bulldogs, underdogs as they grew into national champions in 2018, relished that role. Yes, they had Ben Reeves, the Tewaaraton Award winner. Yes, they had a terrific team. Yet there still were the historic powerhouses carrying the weight of expectation.

When Yale toppled Duke last Memorial Day, the emotion was joy, pure joy. This was the school’s first NCAA lacrosse championship. It came during the last days of the career of athletic director Tom Beckett, the man who took a chance on a UMass assistant named Andy Shay in 2003, and the final payoff was awesome.

Tears of joy were everywhere.

This was a much different day. A bad day among the days of continued ascension of Shay’s program. Proof? Yale was 35-45 in Shay’s first six seasons. Yale is 118-44 since, including back-toback appearances in the national title game. Eleven seniors move on, ready to use their Ivy League educations, yet only three — Jack Tigh, John Daniggelis and Joseph Sessa — would be considered prominent on the field.

“You’re going to make me cry,” Shay said when asked about the seniors. “They’re the greatest kids. They do everything you ask for and more. They have the most wins in school history. Four NCAA tournaments, only two classes have ever done that … Great in the classroom. Incredible citizens.

Great representatives for the university. If my son can grow up to be like these guys, it would be great.”

There is another truth in all this. There’s a load of talent returning. This day slipped away, but the expectations do not.

“I think everybody understands the future it bright,” Shay said. “We’ve got expectations. Fair or unfair, people in our area want us to come back here. That’s our endeavor. We’re going to try and make it back. With the guys we have in the locker room, I think we have a pretty good chance.”

Jackson Morrill will be back. Matt Brandau, who set the freshman scoring record, will be back. So will Matt Gaudet. The three big scorers return. So does, T.D. Ierlan, one of the best faceoff men in the history of the college game. So does goalkeeper Jack Starr.

Yes, the future is bright. Only the present sucked.

It is a great irony that on a day when they set the NCAA record for most goals in a tournament (67), the Bulldogs scored their least goals all season (nine).

The Cavaliers won in the first half, outscoring Yale, 6-2. Remember. Yale had 10 goals in the first quarter alone against No. 1 Penn State. The Bulldogs ran off

19, 19 and 21 goals in the first three tournament games. Ierlan won faceoffs at a dizzying rate. Yale played at lightning tempo and had a deep array of scorers.

According to Lax Vegas Lines, Yale was a 1.5-goal favorite in this game. It made sense.

And then Yale ran into a swarming defense, a hot

goalie and a highly skilled yet immensely patient offensive plan. The game also was physical, really physical. Just ask Gaudet who got laid out by the 175-pound Dave Smith.

Sometimes, stats can be misleading. Virginia showed only a 48-46 edge on ground balls, but the Cavaliers got far more than the 50-50 balls that mattered. Virginia’s Petey LaSalla won only six of 25 faceoffs, but he went 4-6 in the first half and scored a quick goal off a rush on one of them. Alex Rode made 13 saves in game and each one of the eight he made in the first half was bigger than the other.

From there it was a boa constrictor. Guys like Matt Moore and Michael Kaus, of New Canaan, finishing at the net.

“No doubt about it,” Shay said. “they held the ball for every shot clock. They got it to single digits, I don’t know how many times. That was very frustrating. We like to run and we like to play fast. They got a few saves on us, a few failed clears and they’re possessing the ball as long as they were. It got very frustrating. It wore on us.”

Eventually it wore Yale out. And it hurt.

“I lost it in there talking to them,” said Shay, now standing outside the locker room at Lincoln Financial Field. “I told them I loved them and I’m proud of them. I just don’t think it could be overstated how hard this year was on this team. What last year’s team did, no one expected and that’s fine. But what this team did going head first into all that pressure every single game, it’s incredible. These kids deserve a lot of credit for that. You don’t see that in the scoresheet or overall record.”

This is what substantial programs learn to live with, learn to absorb and process. It is something the UConn women’s basketball program and Geno Auriemma understand better than anyone. Winning it all once is jubilation. Winning more than once, sustained brilliance, is an enormous challenge.

“The last week I had time to reflect that, wow, this is an amazing accomplishment that we got back here given everything we had to fight through,” Shay said. “It made us grow as a team. It made me grow as a coach. And now it’s gone. Now it’s Virginia’s problem. I would love to have that trophy again, but I don’t want that albatross anymore.

“We’ve got to continue to raise the bar, but for us I’m not sure how much higher the bar can go after this weekend. We’d like to get back here next year. We’d like to win it again. It’s a lot of fun. We’ve got the support of the university and our alums, great kids, recruiting is going well. We’ve got as good a chance as we’ve ever had to continue to get better.”

Shay’s status in lacrosse has never been higher, and it has risen in the overall athletic landscape in Connecticut. He is a builder, a terrific coach, a man who cares deeply, and a man who now understands grand expectations.

“I wished we fared better today,” he said, “but we will be back.”