Your fondest & most memorable lacrosse moment

[great_googly_moogly]

First, The last 12.9 seconds of regulation time in JHU-UVA, May 28, 2005. Peyser wins face-off, passes to Byrne who ties the score with 1.4 seconds left.
...

As well as I remember those moments, for some reason I have stronger memories of the crowd noise two days later when the refs yelled "keep it in!" That was when I really started to believe that 18 yrs were over.

[delicksen]

It was a media shootaround with the Calgary Roughnecks. I had just finished two drills, and just started the third. I was running in alone to take a shot at Curtis Palidwor, decided to take a fancy backhand shot, and just as I released the shot, boom, face-plant into the turf. I tore my ACL in half and my right leg was Jell-O. Two players scooped me up and carried me off the field where I waited to get assessed by their trainer. After being assessed with the team injury (they had five guys out with knee injuries at the time), since surgery, I'm reminded of the moment every time I look at the five inch scar on my knee, which I proudly wear, I might add. Of course, if I even hint at picking up another lacrosse stick, just about everyone inside the rink will freak out on me. But I can still watch. lol.

[nnylaxer70]

We were playing a HS game against a prep school that we were having our way with in the rain. Their goalie, a large arrogant fellow, came out of the crease on a clear and I checked the ball from his stick. In attempting to change direction to pursue the ball, he lost his footing and went down, leaving just me, the ball and the goal. I scooped the ball about 15 yds from the net, and did a little high step toward the goal and rolled the ball, underhand from about 6 yds out. The ball passes 2 feet to the left of the goal. I had missed an open net from less then 10 yds!!
Our coach, who's mannerisms were often likened to Gomer Pyle's SGT Carter, let out a howl that still reverberates in my head. Fortunately, as I said, we had the game well in hand, else I might never have played again.

[jhuck-80]

A couple of years ago, I was coaching my son's U11 indoor team. We ended up winning the game by a goal. Near the end of the game (I think we were tied up at the time), one of our players fed the ball from behind the goal to my son, who was in the hole. The feed was pretty high, and my son jumped up, reached his stick about as high as he could, caught the ball and quick-sticked it into the goal while he was still in the air. For a 10 year old, it was a pretty nice play.

After the game, one of the fathers came up to my son and said, "Nice game, Patrick. That last goal you scored was great!" My son's response:

"Thanks. My dad taught me that."

I nearly broke down and cried right on the spot.

[Laxjunkie]

The first school-sanctioned field I could get my team was located at the bottom of two hills. Needless to say, it generally had four-six inches of standing water for most of the season.

For my boys, scooping a completely submerged ball didn't phase them at all. We called it our home-field advantage.

The local media came out to do a story on our game against my husband's team. After two weeks of going to bed to constant trash talking, I watched my husband's team warm up on game day. It was raining. The field was not only muddy, but almost lake-like.

I watched as his players tried to side-step deep puddles during line drills. I looked at my team, laughed, and said, "Boys, I think we got this one in the bag."

We pummeled them. My husband has left coaching because he's now a school administrator, and granted, he ended his career beating me 6-4. But I had the satisfaction of a televised, glorious, muddy, win that the alumni still talk about.

[tllax3200]

Playing in a National Championship, going into double overtime, unfortunately losing.

In a moment of pure adrenalin, hitting a Navy attackman as he was cutting across the crease. The hit was so hard it knocked him into the goal and flipped it over. I was a local to Annapolis so anytime we played the Naval Academy it seemed there was just a little more juice flowing. Yes, it was a clean hit.

The following year we beat the Naval Academy for the first time, we were a D-3 team.

Playing with, and for, probably the best group of D-3 players, coaches, and fans.

Coaching my son's team to the county championship....finally...after being the runner up for 3 years. Then watching them celebrate on the field. What a site!!! All the smiles...all the tears.

More so than anything else watching my kids take to the sport, not because I played but because it was their choice and it has become a part of them just as it did with me and still is to this day. I can only hope and pray they have half the experiences I did and memories I have. I hope they have more!!! It's their memory time....

[chitown]

I related this story once before on LaxPower a couple of years ago on a thread about the best Dynasty or something like that, but the story belongs here.

When I was a Sophomore, I was especially arrogant, full-of-myself, but really didn't have perspective on the Game nor a healthy respect for players on other teams. But I learned one day what the game is all about.

We were playing Navy for the NC, and we were both undefeated. The game was at Homewood at Homecoming. They were just beating the hell out of us. It was our only collegiate loss of the year. It wasn't that we were bad, it was that they were quite simply much better than us.

I was guarding one of their "Big Guys", like Brian Lantier or Neil Henderson, who had decided to take the air out of the ball, since they had a a huge lead. So being an arrogant sophomore and lacking common sense, I challenged this Navy middie by asking him to bring the ball into play, discussing his relations with his mother, and other members of his family, and questioning whether he could really be the son of a human being.

I still remember his response like I am standing there, and I still laugh about it. Instead of responding "in kind", he just looked at me and smiled. In fact, he really smiled. Then he said, "Why don't you come out here and take the ball away from me" Damn. The referee looked at me and then looked at him and they BOTH started laughing.

There was no way that I was going to try that in front of that big crowd. He called my bluff, put me in my place and he knew it, the ref knew it and I knew it. It was a lesson in humility, perspective and humor, and I appreciated it then and I appreciate it now.

I hope that he is still laughing at me.

[spenny]

first game of my boarding school career, my first game in over a year (my first HS dissolved the lax team before the previous season).
OOB at the restraining line. i'm covering an opposing attackman whos going to put the ball into play. whistle blows, attackman cradles once, i step forward, and poke check his glove right off his hand, he gets yardsaled in the process, ball goes OOB again and its ours.

[Puck]

during the summer of '73, you could see and play some good lacrosse in a cow pasture north of Balto. We played in the evenings, and they were always warm and clear. For nothing. The only price of admission was the time spent trying to find the place, and once you got there, it was a fairly good uphill hike to the field. Back then, we played more for the joy of the game than for the thrill of victory.

Most of us had already known our share of victories anyway. What we wanted now, and what we had, was plenty of sunshine...great camaraderie...and something cool to kill our thirst.

We had our share of stars, but you would never have known it though. Jack Thomas and Les Mathews from the Hop, Tom Duquette, Bruce Mangels and Jim Ulman from UVA, Bob Shriver from WC, Ted Bauer and Skip Litchfuss from W&L. If you dropped a ball, an AA would pick it up for you. We looked and played like a bunch of guys just enjoying the summer, and we did.

Having just graduated from hs I felt a sense of magic about me. For most of us that summer, a lot had changed in the past few years. But not nearly as much as the game we played. We had only to look at the name on the t-shirts we wore as jerseys to know why.

STX, our sponsor, had stepped up and changed the old game for good, and it came so easily and so naturally that I doubt many people even noticed.

Over the course of three seasons the wood stick had vanished. In its place was the STX creation, a plastic molded thing perched on a wood handle that let you do things with the ball that you would never have considered before.

It was a special time making new friends back in the day...when life seemed more genuine and less complicated.

[chitown]

Lacrosse players have run drills in practice for hours and years.

One old Tried & True ground ball drill is the 2 on 1, where the man going for the ball yells "I have ball, take the man", indicating your team-mate should knock-down/get-in-the-way of the other opposing player going for the ball.

Sometimes that drill, for very human reasons, doesn't get executed in a real game situation.

A famous incident at my old school occurred against Syracuse.

John Mackey was playing for Syracuse. He later was a All Pro NFL Tight End for the Baltimore Colts. He was large. Very large.

One of our smaller well-disciplined middies was going for the ball, and being well-trained, yelled "I have the ball, take the man". As he said later, after he regained consciousness, the last thing he remembers was hearing one of his own teammates yell back, "----(obscenity) You! Its Mackey!"

He really took a hit. And his team-mate later said, "Better him than me".

[readandfeed]

Manhattanville Tournament, 2001...Championship game...we trail by 2 with 14 seconds left, score...down 1 with 13 left.
Our FOGO rakes it and wins clean, fast break, pass to the point attack, makes the right read and passes near pipe...yahtzee...game tied with 4 seconds or so on the clock.
OT...they win the draw, bring it down and rip it...top right, I make the save and hit the shooters middie on a quick outlet...another fast break for us, another great read by the point man...yahtzee again. We win.
I will always remember my coach sprinting out to me, bear hug ensues..."great save"...

I will never forget that. I'm a D3 coach now, my old coach is in D2...I LOVE this game!

[6x6]

Watching my son who was a short, slow, pudgy newcomer in 6th grade, mature on and off the field to become a good citizen, and an all-state HS player who helped his team to a state championship. Freshman in college this year, so I hope I'll have new ones later.

Also, watching my buddy Bill Foote and the rest of the Rochester Griffins defeat Philly with John Grant, to win the 1974 NLL Championship. (The party after was pretty cool too ).

[DD-Tech]

Hofstra vs. Umass 2006 Qtr Finals... great moment captured right here with Umass D picking up a loose ball after a shot by Hofstra that should have ended the game. Umass brings it all the way down the field...calls a time out... and scores.

And sitting right there in the stands in this picture is me and my oldest son (11 yr old at the time) with our hearts in our throats and hands to our heads as it all happens. We were rooting for Umass by the way! I've been to some great games but this one was special...and to have this moment caught on film makes it even better.

[rakkar]

In Southern Maryland where lacrosse is fairly new, every year we run into teams from Anne Arundel county where they have been playing a lot longer then us. So every year it is more of how well you do against them and not if you win or lose. The top school in the conference has been building to finally win the region and those beating the top AACO teams, Severna Park, South River, or Broadneck. So they made it to the Finals last year against Severna Park, and was hosting it in Leonardtown. The game went back and forth and was one of the best lacrosse games I have ever seen. LTown took the lead late for the first time and then Spark went out on a run. LTown brought it within 1 with 12 seconds left. Now it was do or die, LTown won the FO and was on a fastbreak, the whole stadium stood up in silence and it was truly the best SPORT moment I have every been apart of. Years of watching the sport grow in front of you for this one goal and here it was. Although LTown didnt finish they fast break and SPARK went on to win. The whole stadium stayed standing and gave the boys a standing ovation as the players left. We talked about this game for a very long time and hope that someone will finally top the big time AACO teams this year.

[bigdog48]

Going to Bacharach Rasin in Towson to buy my first stick (wood).

[chitown]

One of my newest "fondest moments" was the chance to read so many memories and moments from so many others. I thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts and moments . Thanks for sharing.

I'm sure that there are more.

[gennylax]

This is probably not the best lacrosse memory, but it is certainly the most recent and funniest...I was at the War at the Shore in Jersey, sitting under the trees waiting for our next game, watching the action on a nearby field...a guy comes running off the field, beer in hand, and proceeds to yak in a grove of trees right near where we were sitting, then swigs his beer, pulls down his helmet, and runs back into the action...the heart of a champion!

[willlax4food]

has to be the NYS state finals of my daughter's senior year. she's a starting attacker and her team is down 2 with 6 min to go in a timeout after their opponent's last goal. her team is getting waxed at the draw by at least 2 to 1 and they've gone thru 5 different girls trying to change the mojo. the coach, out of ideas asks in the huddle who wants to take the next draw. my daughter, who hasn't done a draw in a game situation draw since her sophomore year raises her hand and says i will (even better this moment is captured on the game's DVD). she goes out and wins the next 4, her team scores 3 goals to take the lead and then holds the ball for the last min for the win and 2nd consecutive state title. in fact her teams since middle school lost one game.. by one goal. one tough competitor.

[DakotaDan]

(1) One very fond memory was watching the utter jubilation of a team that had just won a D3 conference tournament championship on their opponent's field. At the end of the field, the opponents had hung a very large banner with a message in exceptionally poor taste that disparaged the student population of the visitor's school. When the game ended and sticks had been thrown in the air, the victorious women, shrieking with delight (and perhaps rage), ran to the banner and tore it into a hundred pieces.

(2) Another vivid memory is one that I described in the last issue (July 1, 2002) of the old LaxPower Newsletter. I'm pleased never to have attended another game like this.

Some of my favorite e-mails from site visitors have come from newsletter readers. One involved an exchange of messages with a young woman — she used to write at the end of every season to say "thanks," but I have since lost track of her; I expect that she graduated from college and moved on — who wrote one time about safety concerns. She had attended a Division III men's game several years ago, and the overtime was played in a hard, driving rain with frequent lightning strikes very near by. She expressed concern about the safety of both players and fans, wondered why the game was not halted by the officials, and asked whether there was a rule covering this situation.

Her e-mail, which I forwarded to a referee (who sent it "up the line"), resulted in actions to encourage more awareness of the dangers of lightning. We ran a number of pieces on lightning safety; there have been communications to/among some officials about it; and I know of more than one official who now carries a portable lightning detector ... One footnote to the story: At the game about which the writer complained, most of the fans ended up crowded under a large, open-sided tent just above the aluminum bleachers. Not far from several tall trees, it was hardly an ideal spot with lightning all around. I don't believe that I ever told her, but there was someone else beneath the tent that day: me. I had voiced concerns about the continuation my play myself and only learned later that woman who wrote was talking about the very same game.

[lroggy]

I was a sophomore in 1978 when the Hobart-Cornell game was played in Ithaca and was fortunate enough to attend, with about the entire town of Geneva going down for the game.

Cornell ended up winning the game 13-11, after Hobart staged an amazing rally over a 15 minute period starting late in the third quarter from a 10-5 deficit, taking an 11-10 lead with four minutes left in the game.

The game was actually featured in the following week's Sports illustrated (the Baseball Preview issue featuring George Foster and Rod Carew on the cover, dated April 10, 1978, which I still own!!).

The crowd was estimated at 10,500, which was a huge number for those days for a regular season game. The anticipation of the game in upstate NY was tremendous, as the previous year's game was snowed out and both teams ended up as undefeated national champs in 1977 (Cornell in Div. I and Hobart in II-III).

Cornell's lineup was a Who's Who of Lacrosse that year and Hobart's not far behind. Ironically, after playing one of the most hyped games of its generation, neither team ended up winning the title. Cornell's loss in the finals was the first varsity game their seniors ended up losing.

I still tell family and friends that game was the single best sporting event I attended in person.

Here is the article, from SI's vault:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm