What Can Brown Do For You?

The post title wrote itself

Mother nature decided to give the hippies in the Baltimore/DC metro area a beautiful day to enjoy smoking trees on 4/20. Oh, it was also a fantastic day to skip out of work early and catch a premier high school lacrosse game. Under Armour's #20 Georgetown Prep took the bus trip down down the road to #22 Landon's palatial campus for the IAC rivalry that never disappoints.

The atmosphere is exactly what I expected out of these two schools. The "Beat Prep" shirts were out in full force as were the respective student bodies. There's no love lost between these two schools and they get after it on the field almost as hard as the fans get after each other with their upper crust repartee.

Braveheart-style charge from the Landon faithful!

The Landon student body made an appearance about 2 minutes before game time as they threw fireworks and charged down the hill to the field taunting the Prep players as they ran past with daggers such as, "you suck" and "your mom drives a 3 series". Uncalled for if you ask me, but it only served to light a fire under the Prep squad.

Georgetown Prep donned their royal blue threads for this one, and they got right down to business scoring the first two goals of the game and inciting their fans in the process. Landon answered those goals and went into the half with a 3-2 lead. That was pretty much it for Prep. Landon went on to score 5 in the third to put the game out of reach.

Gribbon getting decked...trust me.

A couple of observations from someone not overly familiar with these teams. Penn State bound Bobby Gribbon is the real deal. The kid is an athlete and can get up and down the field. I think he finished with 2 goals, but credit Landon's poles for holding him to two. When he did manage to beat his guy, Landon did a great job of sliding with body. Gribbon seemingly spent half the day picking himself up off the turf. He's a tough nut though as he continued to take it right into the teeth of the defense.

Face-offs...Landon had Gribbon's number today. I'm not sure what kind of face-off guy he is normally, but not only did Landon's middies beat him, but they got in his head. If Gribbon wasn't called for at least 3 procedure calls at the face-off X, I'll eat my non-flat brim hat.

Alex Joyce

Goal keeping. Landon's goalie, junior Alex Joyce, looked like an all star today. One of the parents said he's committed to Georgetown and it looks like the Hoyas have a good one coming their way. However, Georgetown Prep and Landon's defense made it easy on him. Prep was forced into a lot of low percentage shots or no shot at all thanks to some stingy and physical defense and some lethargic offense. Prep couldn't find anyone open all day and had trouble beating their defenders. Prep's attack looked intimidated and deferred to their middies who just weren't getting it done. Credit Landon's d-middies and poles for that.

Landon was very opportunistic, patient, and efficient. They never looked to be dominating the game, but they made their possessions count without any stand outs from my perspective. #2 (Patrick Keena, I think) played a solid game and led the way despite not forcing the action. Landon took care of the ball and their sticks were as solid as you've come to expect out of this program. It's funny. With the proliferation of MCLA videos posted in various corners of the internet, I feel a renewed sense of appreciation for the lacrosse played in this area. By comparison, these kids make some of the college club squads look like over-hyped middle school teams. I guess that surprises only me.

Lastly, I was shocked to see that Georgetown Prep has a Petro-like figure stalking their sideline. I know Coach Giblin caught my attention when he ripped one of his guys a new a-hole for stepping out of the box on a flag down play-on scenario. I heard several of the Landon players' parents comment in disbelief as well. This was when the game was still a game too. He might be the nicest guy in the world and the greatest thing since sliced bread, but he gets my douche of the week award for not having any more tact than that...or at the very least, situational awareness.

Tons of pics on Facebook.