Will the Bulldogs Break Through?

Very interesting article about what's holding the UMD Bulldogs lacrosse team back.  What it comes down to, according to Coyne, is facilities.  Duluth lacks the facilities to allow them to practice effectively through the long winter months leading up to the lacrosse season.  Hard to argue that point.  New sports dome in Duluth anyone???


Schooling Schooler: Will the Dawgs Break Through?

by Jac Coyne | LaxMagazine.com

By most standards, Minnesota-Duluth would have to be considered among the traditional elites of the MCLA. They play as tough a schedule as any program in the country, and there are only six other teams that have more than the Bulldogs nine appearances in the national tournament – BYU, Colorado, Colorado State, Simon Fraser, Sonoma State and UC Santa Barbara.

If it's not elite, Duluth sure is running in elite company, anyway.

UMD's leading scorer - Senior attackman Kevin Gaydos

The only knock on the Dawgs is they have never had a breakthrough season along the way. Five of the six aforementioned teams have a national championship to their credit, and Simon Fraser made it to the national championship game in 1999. Duluth, on the other hand, has never advanced past the quarterfinal round, and exited in the first round in five of the nine years. They came close to the semis in both 2007 (losing to Oregon) and 2008 (ASU), but the Bulldogs have never made it to the big stage.

Sometimes you can pinpoint deficiencies with some programs and easily pick up on why they aren't having success, but Duluth doesn't outwardly exhibit any of them. They are clearly a serious team, as their schedule displays on an annual basis, and they have had coaching continuity. While Rob Graff, the architect of the team, stepped down two years ago, he was replaced by his acolyte, Frank Clark, who made only cursory changes to the way the program was run. And there's definitely talent – every year the All-American teams are littered with UMD players

So what is holding the Dawgs back?

I would argue that they are being leashed by their conference. The Upper Midwest Lacrosse League is currently a six-team entity that rarely has a team other than Duluth make an impact on the national scene. Mankato State received a bid back in 2000 and Minnesota snagged the UMLL auto-qualifier in 2005, but forays to other regions by those two teams this season have not been pretty (combined 2-5). And just two years ago, the conference actually had to contract as both Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Wisconsin-Stevens Point folded.

With a weak conference comes weak seeds, and Duluth has lived and died with its match-ups at nationals. The Dawgs have been a 14-seed or worse four times and they were wiped out in the first round each time. Four times they were a sixth seed or better, and each one of those resulted in a trip to the quarterfinals.

To their credit, UMD has always played a grueling non-conference schedule to make up for its conference shortcomings, but that means the margin of error is very small. If you can't pick up a signature win along the way, you're not going to make up for it in conference play like schools in the SLC and RMLC have the ability to do.

This season has played out to form, with four comfortable wins against UMLL teams followed by consecutive losses to the Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 teams in the country. Barring a sweep this weekend in the desert against Arizona State and Colorado, the Dawgs will once again be flirting with the No. 16 seed.

Nick, you've seen Duluth over the years and you watched them play Santa Barbara this spring. Is there something I'm missing, or is the conference just not strong enough to give the Dawgs what they need right now?

SCHOOLER: For the 12 years that I have been following this league, Minnesota-Duluth has been one of the most charismatic teams out there.

In high school, I remember talking to my dad, an MCLA fanatic, on the phone when he was watching the national championships in St. Louis. He was telling me about this team from Minnesota that only had 17 or so players. He said they tried so hard, but were just run down by the other teams. He also said that they looked pretty good, but seemed to have a lot of box lacrosse influence in their game. That was their first year in the tournament.

The Bulldogs have come a long way since that time, consistently fielding teams with 30-plus players, including a handful of goalies. They continue to take on the top teams in order to make a better run at the national championship title. In recent years, they have put together some of the toughest in the league. They participate in at least one top-tier round-robin type trip every year and have a grueling travel schedule.

I remember one such round-robin trip back in 2004 at the University of Michigan. There were four teams: Michigan, Colorado State, UCSB, and Minnesota-Duluth. The 'Dawgs were trounced by all three teams while Michigan delivered UCSB's only loss of the season, CSU beat Michigan, and UCSB beat CSU. Duluth was like a younger brother playing with his older brother and his friends; they were outmatched.

This is not the case anymore. The little brother grows up; he gets bigger and stronger and the playing field levels out. What I saw out of Duluth in Santa Barbara last week was just that. They looked pretty good – definitely better than their No. 16 ranking. Their goalie was solid. The coaching was on point, locking off the UCSB middies with long-poles and shutting down the attack with shorties. While I still see a little box lacrosse influence in their game, all of their players can handle the ball and rip quality shots from outside. They just ran out of gas in the second half. That has been a theme for them early on this season - great first halves, poor second halves.

What I see lacking in their game are two things: endurance and facilities. These are not mutually exclusive. After the game, I heard some parents talking about the facilities that the Bulldogs use.

Because of the extreme weather in the Midwest, they have to practice in a fieldhouse. They only have access to a half-field for practice. That has to make conditioning an issue. How can you get used to running up and down a field if you only have half of one? You can't. It also limits the amount of time each player gets to see field time in practice. Many teams will focus on defense on one half of the field and offense on the other half. Duluth cannot do that.

Most importantly, the Bulldogs do not have many home games. Looking over their past schedules, I notice that they only have one to two home games per season at home in Griggs Stadium. Occasionally they will host a team in Minneapolis, but that is just like a road trip.

You gain a lot of confidence by winning at home. The support of your friends and family at games is important. When you know the cute girl from your writing or biology class is watching, you may put a little more effort into the game. You want to impress people in your social circles.

So until Duluth can find a home field or raise the millions of dollars to build a field house, they will have trouble competing with the best and succeeding at nationals. But if they ever break past the quarterfinals, we will all be rooting for them because we know how tough it is for them.