To continue the discussion of the 2023 Tournament for the Hokies.
HOKIES MOVE ON TO THE SEMIS! Hokies win 17-6 to move on to the next round!— Virginia Tech Men's Lacrosse (@HokieLax) May 10, 2023
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It's down to the final four! #1 VT, #3 Liberty, #4 Chapman, and #7 Concordia
Next up is the #4 seed Chapman University Panthers out of Orange, CA. They have been a mainstay in the MCLA tournament, making it every year since 2008 except 2020 (no season) and 2022. They won it all in 2016 and In 2021 they made it to the finals before falling to South Carolina, so they are no stranger to going far in this tournament. Chapman is 17-3 this year and enter the final four matchup with VT after beating defending champion South Carolina 13-7 in the first round and BYU 12-10 in the second round.
VT has averaged 18 goals per game in their first two games of the tourney while giving up less than 5 per matchup, so let's hope they keep the train rolling on Thursday against Chapman and get to the finals!
Game time is 5:00pm Central (I believe) and here's the link to the tournament page for that game, but you can also follow the VT Men's Lacrosse Twitters for live updates during the game.
LET'S GO!!!!
HOKIES!!!
Hokies are in the finals!!! They beat Chapman 15-9 and will play the winner of the Liberty v Concordia game.
Finals will be tomorrow night at 7pm Central!
Edit: I keep forgetting to plug donating to the club. Please see https://crowdfund.vt.edu/project/24464 for a description of their costs and options for donating.
Yeah baby!
Recap from the tournament site
HEY! IT'S MY JOB TO POST THE RECAP!
Damn, the boys are going to be in for a tough game tomorrow it looks like. Concordia knocked off Liberty 25-10. They knocked off GiT (co-#1 with VT in the polls) in the round before that 14-11.
ROUND ROCK, Texas – Concordia's Chad McFadden set the Division I record for most goals in a tournament game and the Eagles posted the most goals in single game on their way to a 25-10 rout of Liberty in the semifinals of the 2023 MCLA National Championships presented by New Balance on Thursday evening.
The win propels Concordia (14-5) to its first-ever visit to the Division I national championship game – the Eagles made two visits as a D-II team – where it will play top-seeded Virginia Tech on Friday at 7 p.m.
Even though these two teams played an overtime game during the regular season won by Liberty (15-5), this contest held very little drama.
The two teams traded goals to start the game, but the remainder of the first half was all Concordia. McFadden buried his second goal of the contest to give the Eagles a 3-1 edge heading into the second stanza.
After again trading goals to start the second, McFadden buried his third and fourth goals in a three-goal run to push the lead to 7-2 with 10:32 left in the half. By the end of the eight-goal second-quarter onslaught, Liberty was on the business end of an 11-5 halftime deficit.
McFadden opened the second half with another natural hat trick to balloon the lead to 14-5 with 11:25 left in the third. Liberty countered by scoring three of the next four goals, but at 15-8, the game was essentially over.
It was 18-8 after three quarters when McFadden piled on three more goals for the record before being pulled for the fourth quarter.
Eric Obispo had two goals and three assists to aid the Concordia effort. Daniel Yang posted eight saves before giving way to Ryan Richters in the fourth.
Keaton Mohs had three goals and three assists for the Flames.
This Concordia team is tough to figure out. They are 14-5 overall, lost to VT earlier this year 14-11, and lost to Liberty in OT 12-11, but as mentioned they have hit their stride in this tournament beating a very good GT team 14-11, and curb stomping the Fighting Falwells 25-10 in a game where a single Concordia player (Chad McFadden - Jr Attack) scored as many goals as the entire Liberty team - in a D1 playoff record setting performance. That is just mind boggling.
So the question is do they have enough in the tank after playing the late game last night to keep it up against a VT team who is also averaging 17 goals per game on offense in the tournament, but is giving up a relatively stingy 6 goals per game vs the near 11 goals against per game for Concordia.
One of the keys will be to be good on face-offs. Concordia absolutely obliterated Liberty in that department, winning 31 of 35 face-offs with two separate specialists. If VT can keep that percentage close to 50% (or better) I really like their chances to bring home the hardware.
Let's Go!!!
Hokies!
Following the VT Men's Lacrosse Tweeters, it looks like a 5-4 halftime lead for the good guys. VT had a 5-2 lead but Concordia scored twice in the last 2 minutes of the half to close the gap to one.
They have to start strong in the 3rd quarter! Let's not forget they were tied 3-3 at the half against Sparty in the first round and ended up winning 19-3, so they got it in 'em.
LFG!!!!!
LFG!!!
Fucking Hokies!
Its 14-7 Concordia. Someone check their water bottles or whatever they drinking
They must have heard you - it's now 15-10 bad guys.
We stole the secret juice!
They took it back 😔
They stole it back - 16-10 with under 2 to go
Boo.
17-10 final.
If only Vick had turned the right way on that goal line option....oh wait, that was a different national title game.
Concordia came out on fire in the 3rd quarter and we just couldn't answer. Congrats to the boys for making the run to the finals, and here's to our continued success in the sport.
Well that was rough to watch. We had so many shots on goal but Concordia's goalie nabbed everything. Their defense was stellar. I don't know how they had so much energy after having the late game last night.
Oh well. At least we improved on last year, and this year I got to take the wife and kids. Hopefully MCLA is back in Austin next year, and so are the Hokies.
How sad
Concords are moving up to NCAA Division II next year. That means scholarships. Bet they recruited some good talent with that promise. Michigan did the same a few years ago. Boo