Lacrosse Magazine: Can LIU Post Keep Run Alive?

5/15/2014 10:47:00 AM

There was no team get-together with pizza and wings in a campus classroom to watch the selection show two weeks ago. There were no conversations of potential match-ups or travel plans. Once LIU Post had disbanded following its win in the ECC Championship game on Saturday, that was that.

"I personally thought we were out," said Pioneers head coach John Jez. "The team went home and watched it individually on their own. When we got the call and saw the video, we were super-excited to continue to play, but there was four teams on the bubble between Merrimack, ourselves, Dowling and New York Tech for the last two spots. Who know who was going to get those two spots?"

Two weeks later, Jez and his players are 60 minutes from playing for a national championship – something the Pioneers haven't done since 2010 when they won a second straight crown.

A lot of the credit has to go to Jez, who kept this team focused despite seemingly heavy odds against it. It's never easy to keep a team churning forward when there appears to be very little incentive left, even with the advent of the ECC tourney this year.

Jez gives all the credit to the players.

"When we were down in the last two weeks of the season, our record was 6-5, and they pulled it together and the guys got us to 9-5 by the end of the tournament," he said. "They don't want their season to end. They are playing tough. It's a great group of senior leaders and we're riding on their energy more than anything else."

It was a senior and two graduate students who were critical in the Pioneers improbable win over defending national champion Le Moyne in the quarterfinals. It started with senior Dom Mantovani, who won 10-of-16 faceoffs against the incomparable Kam Bumpus while also grabbing eight ground balls.

Jez has tapped into the '10 championship team to help Mantovani, adding Michael Cama to the staff as a volunteer assistant. Cama was the specialist of the year and two-time All-American for Post as a FOGO during its repeat seasons, and has elevated Mantovani's game.

"Cama came in here and helped us out and worked with our faceoff guys and he has matured those guys pretty quickly," Jez said. "That's a big reason why we're winning games right now: we're able to hold our own out there."

Graduate students Joe Costello and T.J. DiCarlo were also critical in defeating the Dolphins. Costello, who was the two-time MCLA (club) Player of the Year at St. Thomas (Minn.), scored four of the Pioneers' nine goals against Le Moyne. DiCarlo, who was the goalie of the year in NCAA Division II during his undergrad days at Mercy, turned away 14 shots in the victory.

"T.J. is staying big in the goal and making big saves," Jez said. "Fourteen saves is a great number for him and between him and Joe, our two graduate students, they took the bull by the horns Saturday. They didn't want their season to end and they played great."

Now LIU Post must turn its sights to Adelphi, a team that defeated the Pioneers back on March 11, 11-7. Jez had a different team two months ago, however. After the Le Moyne game, the coach encouraged his players to worry about the present.

"Way to keep it rolling, way to ride on the senior momentum and way to be vindicated," Jez told his team on Saturday. "There was a bunch of stuff going around. We didn't have the best record during the course of the year and we had some hiccups, but we've proved we're a quality team."