Pietramala

Good morning--Dave Pietramala--Keep winning lacrosse championships and Hopkins will keep you around forever.

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Never mind that so many Johns Hopkins players were fighting the flu a few days earlier that coach Dave Pietramala had to call off practice. Or that yesterday's game was at the Carrier Dome, home of a Syracuse team that eliminated the Blue Jays from last season's NCAA tournament. Or that Syracuse's first shot of the game zipped into the back of the Hopkins net. Disregard all of that because No. 3 Hopkins did and dominated every aspect of the game, rolling over the No. 4 Orange, 17-9, before an announced crowd of 7,408, Pietramala's third victory in four visits to the dome.

Lights, cameras and it's Hopkins-Maryland, just fill in the blank.Upsets. Point-blank saves. Bone-shaking hits. On-field brawls.Tonight the Terrapins and Blue Jays renew their 103-year-old intrastate series and the game's longest rivalry under the lights of Homewood Field, in front of a frenzied overflow crowd of 10,000 fans and before a local television audience."

C Dave Pietramala helped some, but not enough.Pietramala, signed by the Thunder to plug the Major Indoor Lacrosse League's leakiest defense, debuted Saturday night, and the Thunder yielded fewer than the 18 goals opponents averaged last season.But the Detroit Turbos dominated the second half of the season opener while the Thunder offense disappeared in a 15-8 Detroit victory at the Baltimore Arena."I don't think we executed on offense and we got away from our game plan on defense," said Pietramala, a two-time first-team All-MILL pick who came to the Thunder via the dispersal draft after the Pittsburgh Bulls folded.

Dave Pietramala strode off the field after the World Lacrosse Championship final and handed his stick to one young fan, a glove to another and his helmet to a third.That, Pietramala said, signaled the end of his playing career. Henceforth, coaching -- at the moment as a Loyola College assistant -- would command his sole lacrosse attention.Pietramala, the dominant defenseman in college lacrosse when at Johns Hopkins from 1986 to 1989, helped Team USA repeat as champion in the quadrennial event that ended Saturday in Manchester, England.

Dave Pietramala is going home.Johns Hopkins head lacrosse coach Tony Seaman yesterday named Pietramala as the Blue Jays' new full-time assistant coach, filling the vacancy created by the departure of John Haus, who is now head coach at Washington College."

It was only an indoor lacrosse scrimmage, but the matchup was of classic proportions.For the Philadelphia Wings, it was Paul Gait, the best offensive player in the world if his twin brother Gary isn't.For the Baltimore Thunder, it was Dave Pietramala, MVP in the 1990 World Games and acknowledged as the best defensive player in the game.As Gait was stretched out and had planted a foot after catching a pass during the scrimmage a few weeks ago at the Baltimore Arena, Pietramala, 6 feet 4, 208 pounds, hit him. Gait, no shrimp at 6-2, 200, was knocked cold for three minutes.

Dave Pietramala helped some, but not enough.Pietramala, signed by the Thunder to plug the Major Indoor Lacrosse League's leakiest defense, debuted Saturday night, and the Thunder yielded fewer than the 18 goals opponents averaged last season.But the Detroit Turbos dominated the second half of the season opener while the Thunder offense disappeared in a 15-8 Detroit victory at the Baltimore Arena."I don't think we executed on offense and we got away from our game plan on defense," said Pietramala, a two-time first-team All-MILL pick who came to the Thunder via the dispersal draft after the Pittsburgh Bulls folded.

The U.S. Club Lacrosse Association was right on the mark when it named Mark Millon its North Player of the Year.Only hours after team representatives announced their vote, the former Massachusetts star scored four goals to lead Long Island to an 11-9 victory over Mount Washington for the USCLA championship. The game, played in a drizzle, was the centerpiece of the 12th annual Hall of Fame Lacrosse Classic at Johns Hopkins.Millon, 23, in his first year of club lacrosse, was matched against Mount Washington's Dave Pietramala, one of the best defensemen in the world.

Skip Lichtfuss, the Thunder's new coach, was aghast when he studied last season's Major Indoor Lacrosse League statistics sheet.It showed that the Thunder was by far the worst defensive team. In finishing last in the MILL's American Division with a 2-6 record, the Thunder allowed an average of 18.3 goals. Next-to-last, with a 15.25 yield, were the Detroit Turbos."That's our first line of business," Lichtfuss said at a news conference yesterday. "We've got to cut down on the goals."Lichtfuss, who succeeded John Stewart, who resigned after six seasons, has at least a partial answer in Dave Pietramala.

The Loyola men's lacrosse team has picked up a supporter in its displeasure with being left out of the 16-team NCAA tournament: Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala. While praising the quality of the bracket, Pietramala questioned the selection committee's decision to emphasize significant wins over strength of schedule. "It's obvious that the criteria that this committee used is different than the committee that had been together for the previous two or three years, and it's something that our sport needs to address in terms of consistency," he said.

Three games into the season, Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala said his concern no longer revolved around an offense that lost 62 percent of last year's production. His worry centered on a defense that seemed to struggle under preseason expectations. Pietramala got his wish yesterday as the No. 8 Blue Jays blanketed No. 9 Hofstra on both ends of the field in a convincing 12-7 victory before an announced 2,560 at Homewood Field. Sophomore attackman Kyle Wharton scored a career-high five goals for Johns Hopkins (3-1)

One day soon, the Division I lacrosse powers might be recruiting middle school players. It sounds impossible, but unless the NCAA does something soon, that's where lacrosse is headed. Loyola High coach Jack Crawford and Boys' Latin coach Bobby Shriver say recruiting is one of the sport's biggest problems. "It's gotten out of hand," Shriver said. In some respects, lacrosse recruiting is worse than big-time college football and basketball because the sport is played in the spring. At least football and basketball players get to play through their senior seasons in high school.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass.-- --Coach Dave Pietramala's voice cracked, and he fought hard to hold back his emotions. After Johns Hopkins' hard-fought 13-10 loss to rival Syracuse yesterday in the NCAA Division I men's lacrosse title game at Gillette Stadium, Pietramala had to say farewell to a senior class that had become special to him and to the university. Hopkins has one of the game's most storied histories, and the Blue Jays will always draw a lot of the nation's top recruits, but it could take them a year or two to replace the Class of 2008.

An airplane carrying Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala and offensive coordinator Bobby Benson from Sunday's NCAA tournament quarterfinal at Cornell University to Baltimore was forced to turn back after one of the plane's doors flew open in midflight. Pietramala said he lost a jacket and some papers in the incident, which occurred about 3,000 feet in the air shortly after the airplane had left the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport at 4:15 p.m. "All of a sudden you hear, `Bang!' and the door flies wide open," Pietramala recalled.

There is a theory that Johns Hopkins senior midfielder Paul Rabil is a slow starter, and that he warms up with the weather. When it gets hot in May, so the theory goes, Rabil also gets hot. Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala shakes his head in disbelief, and Rabil just laughs. It's not the weather, but more a change in style of play. Every season for four years, Rabil has had to make adjustments because his role changes. It's been no different this season. "As a freshman, he was just trying to fit in, and then as a sophomore, he was trying to get more involved in the offense, even though we had Kyle Harrison and Matt Rewkowski," Pietramala said.

The 12 seniors on Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team met this week to figure out how to end the Blue Jays' first four-game losing streak since 1990. After about an hour and a half of airing their frustrations, the seniors were joined by the rest of the squad for another open forum that lasted nearly two hours. All this occurred before a team barbecue Sunday. "We're trying to fix our team. That's the most important thing right now," senior midfielder Stephen Peyser said. "We're not trying to make guys feel bad for what's been going on. It's not one specific guy. It's a lot of different guys.

It was like a great fight between two of the sport's biggest heavyweights. Johns Hopkins couldn't put Syracuse away, and the Orange refused to lose. But midfielder Steven Brooks' low bounce shot 37 seconds into the four-minute sudden death overtime period ended nearly two hours of excitement as No. 9 Syracuse edged No. 4 Hopkins, 14-13, yesterday before an announced crowd of nearly 3,500 at Homewood Field. Hopkins led the entire game, five times by as many as three goals, but Syracuse attackman Kenny Nims tied the game on a fast-break goal with 2:10 left in regulation.

Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala couldn't relax until the final whistle. Season-opening games always create anxiety, and there is even more tension when you are the defending national champion. But No. 1 Hopkins started the 2008 season yesterday the way it ended 2007. The Blue Jays scored three unanswered goals in the final 11:29 to pull away for a 10-5 win against No. 12 Albany in the season opener for both teams at Homewood Field. Pietramala and his players were nervous entering the game because the Blue Jays had struggled in practices and scrimmages during the preseason.

Good morning--Dave Pietramala--Keep winning lacrosse championships and Hopkins will keep you around forever.