Well Worth the Trip
Navy senior D Jordan DiNola said he and 10 teammates took an RV to the Navy-Notre Dame football game in South Bend last November. Another 15 or so teammates attended the game as well. The significance being that Navy's victory in triple overtime that day ended a 43-year losing streak in the series.
Navy (9-3) enters the game against Johns Hopkins (4-5) on Saturday at noon having lost 33 in a row in the series.
And it didn't take long for the lacrosse players to start to draw a parallel with the football team's win.
"That was pretty much the first thing that ran through all of our minds," DiNola said. "A couple guys were even open enough to say, 'We gotta do it this year.' It's something I think about almost every day. It's been on the front of a lot of people's minds around here."
DiNola said the team held a meeting on Monday to discuss the 9-6 loss to Army, a loss that ended another streak--a 13-game winning streak in the series for the Midshipmen.
"We have to be like cornerbacks in football--we have to have a short memory," he said. "Win or lose, we have to forget about it and move on. We know there's a chance we'll see them again [in the Patriot League tournament] but we're not worried about that right now."
A crowd of between 15,000-17,000 is expected on Saturday in one of two games that day that are certain to draw a large crowd.
Ohio State hosts Denver in an important GWLL game at 11 a.m. as part of a doubleheader with the spring football game. School officials are hoping to threaten the all-time attendance record of more than 50,000, set at the Final Four last year.
But the most poignant game on Saturday almost certainly will be the Army-Duke game at Manhasset (N.Y.) High. The game is being played to honor the memory of former Duke player Jimmy Regan, an Army Ranger who was killed in combat in Iraq. He had served four tours in the Army. People may remember this heartbreaking picture of his fiancee at his grave at Arlington Cemetary. It ran on A1 of the New York Times on Memorial Day last year.
By Christian Swezey |
April 17, 2008; 8:38 AM ET
| Category:
Navy
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