Detroit Preview: Siena

Detroit comes off a deflating performance needing to rebound in a big way to stay in contention for a regular-season MAAC title. They already hold the tiebreaker over fellow aspirant Marist, and doing the same with Siena would be huge.

Siena

"Saints" as in "Saint Bernards," rather than "canonized people." I can dig it.

11:00 a.m. April 7, 2012
Titan Field, Detroit, Mich.
Live stats. @SienaLacrosse on Twitter.

2012
6-3 (2-0 MAAC). #36 LaxPower. #32 Tempo-free.

Tempo-Free Profile

Now that the Tempo-Free Lax database is all up to date, and (as far as we know – hit me with an e-mail if you find a problem) fully-functional, we can go into a bit more depth.

There are a few things that Siena is not particularly good at, most of them coming in the possession game. They are the No. 47 team on faceoffs, middle-of-the-pack in clears, and downright bad on the ride. Thanks to that combination of factors, they’re 49th in the country in terms of possession percentage.

However, what they do when they have the ball (and also when they don’t, I guess) is pretty impressive, and is what has led to their solid record. Adjusted for strength of schedule, they have the No. 29 offense and No. 23 defense in the land.

Offense

Senior attackman Bryan Neufeld is the key cog in the offense, although he’s not doing it all on his own. He leads the team in scoring with most of his production coming by way of goals, rather than assists. That doesn’t mean he isn’t assisting, with 16 on the season, but he entered the year as the nation’s  active career leader in goals, and has kept that up.

The second-leading scorer is the rare Siena player with more assists than goals. Junior attackman Danny Martinsen has 19 helpers to go along with his 15 goals, so it’s not like he’s simply a feeder, but on this team, that’saying something.

The next three on the list – the only remaining players with double-digit points – all have at least twice as many goals as they have assists. They are the finishers. That includes senior midfielders (and co-captains) Chris Roth and Chris D’Alberti, along with sophomore attack Colin Clive.

Three more players have double-digit shots (but not double-digit points), and they’re all midfielders who cycle into the lineup.

Defense

It’s rare that I mention the goalie prior to the rest of the team, but given that Tom Morr is a captain and fifth-year senior, he’s notable. He has started every game and played all but six minutes of the season so far for the Saints. He’s allowing 10.79 goals against and saving .543 of shots faced.

A pair of juniors lead the charge in front of him. Erik Casparias and Brendan Meehan are the only two Siena players with double-digit caused turnovers, and are tops in ground balls among non-faceoff specialists. The third spot has been mostly manned by sophomore Pat Killeen, and Joe Ednie is near the top of the GB list despite zero games started – since thew roster doesn’t specify, I’m guessing he’s your LSM.

Evan Gallina and Ryan Mallon have a very high GB-to-shot ratio, so there’s a good bet that they’re the starting short-stick defensive midfielders.

Special Teams

Faceoffs have been something of an issue for Siena. They’re winning only .449 on the year (though that’s better than Detroit’s dismal .390). Senior Chris Brancato started the year as The Guy on faceoffs, but based on the stats alone – there’s no mention in the game notes – he went down injured after the first five games. Things have actually gone slightly better under freshman Casey Dowd, but even he has only a .485 success rate.

As mentioned at the top, Siena is a middle-of-the-pack clearing team, and a poor riding team. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not skilled on the ride, but more likely that they don’t emphasize it, preferring to play 6v6 defense instead. Their adjusted defensive efficiency shows that they’ve done a good job in that department, so obviously their focus is well-spent.

The Saints have committed far more penalties than opponents, to the tune of 4.2 per game. While that’s still not Detroit’s 6.5 mark, it’s pretty heavy. You might see lots of man-up opportunities (or 5v5 opportunities) for both teams. Siena is not particularly good at converting on the man-up, while allowing opponents to score more than 40% of the time. If Detroit can play a little cleaner than their performances to date, they could pick up an advantage there.

Big Picture

Without the loss to Manhattan, this game would probably be Detroit’s opportunity to seal up the MAAC regular-season title with two games to play. Regardless of outcome, they were a pretty solid bet for a share of it.

Now, it’s time to win or the dream of a conference title goes out the window. The 1-seed in the tournament probably isn’t that big of a deal, but it would prevent the Titans from having to go through both Marist and Siena to earn their trip to the NCAA Tournament. So maybe it is a big deal after all: there’s a pretty big drop from #3 (currently Detroit) to #4 (Manhattan) in the conference. That fourth bid will go to a team that’s not as strong as the three main contenders.

I’m getting ahead of myself though: Win this game, and the conference title is within reach. An identical record to Marist and Siena with the two worst teams in the league (Jacksonville and VMI) yet to play, and tiebreakers over the top two. Lose it, and you not only drop to third in the standings, but risk letting the season start to slip away.

Basically what I’m saying is don’t lose.

Detroit preview.

Predictions

The presence of Joel Matthews is a big question mark. He sat out the Manhattan debacle thanks to the dreaded “violation of team rules,” which led pretty directly to the second-least efficient offensive output of the year, and ultimately the loss. I’m hearing he’s got his act together and the suspension should be a one-game deal, which would be a huge boost to this offense.

• If Matthews is gone, I Detroit loses by 8+ goals. That may seem like an overreaction, but he really is that important to this offense. All other predictions assume he will be in the lineup.
• On faceoffs, I think thing go very poorly for Detroit. That’s been a safe assumption, even against teams (Michigan and others) who are poor on draws. There has been the occasional pleasant surprise, but it wouldn’t be surprising if I predicted it, right?
• Defensively, Detroit has the ability to really cause some turnovers (shocker of the century!). While Siena is not a sloppy team, they do turn over the ball frequently enough that Detroit can expect to use their aggressiveness to create chances. Ultimately, that can level off the possession margin.
• Siena’s offense has a few great talents who are versatile (namely Neufeld – a midseason All-American – and Martinsen), but most other guys have clearly-defined roles. That should help Detroit pick their spots to be aggressive, as well.
• It’s clear that this Detroit offense runs best when Shayne Adams can function more as a finisher than the primary ball-carrier. Having Matthews and Lehto (presumably) back in the lineup will help that, and you are unlikely to see a repeat performance of last week.
• These are the two fastest teams in the country. Excitement.

Assuming Matthews is back, the Detroit offense shouldn’t be quite so inept against a team that doesn’t quite have the defensive mettle of Ohio State or Georgetown. However, I do think it will take a few things to go right for the Titans – which happened at Siena last year, but not in the MAAC Tournament – to pull off the victory. Detroit falls – barely – to Siena, by a 13-15 score. That sets them up to be the team getting revenge in the MAAC Championship in early May, a reverse of last season.