After this it's just babies and memories.

I just had a bit of closing news to report on as the college lacrosse season has officially come to an end.

Kyle Norchi was named a USILA All-American, the first Cardinal in our program's history to earn such an honor. Couldn't think of a more deserving person to receive the award. Kyle finished his career with 282 points. His 198 career goals are the 13th most in NCAA D-III history.

As you also may remember Norchi earned a spot in the North/South Exceptional Senior game. Although his team did lose, he still managed to get a hat trick in the game. No assists though...go figure.

I know I gave Kyle a hard time on here throughout the season but he is the best player to come through this program, ever. When he told me he was coming back to Plattsburgh for his final year of eligibility I couldn't have been happier.

Well now I am officially an alumni. Can't wait to start receiving calls about how I should be donating to money to my Alma mater.

-DeFran

Christ. Seven years of college down the drain.

I know I said the previous blog was my last but I hope you won't mind if I write one more:

We are officially more educated than Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.

I found it ironic that the day I was graduating from college was the supposed "Rapture" and Apocalypse. I woke up Saturday morning somewhat anticipating the roof to be blown off the field house and to be struck by lighting right before being handed my diploma.

And of course what movie was playing on TV the night before graduation...




Classic.

I'd just like to take this time to thank all the readers of the blog. It seems like after every game this year someone had something to say to me about it, especially the mother of a certain midfielder...Which was great! I loved hearing your guys feedback. Hopefully I kept you all entertained with my twisted views on current events, useless facts and Youtube videos. In the last month alone we clocked in over 2,200 views which is pretty impressive for a division 3 lacrosse team...or a persistent mother trying to up her sons blog views by hitting the refresh button. Either way it has been a great run.

I'm not good with goodbyes so I'll steal a line from one of the classics.



-DeFran

I saw the way your friend Mauricio looked at me; I thought he was going to shoot me with a tranquilizer gun and tag my ear.

I guess I've been dreading this one for awhile...

With our team awards done there is not much left for me to talk about. Come Saturday I won't even be a college student anymore. I feel old already.

First off lets announce the winners of our team awards:

Team Appreciation Award: Assistant Coach Ryan Cavanagh (He will be so pumped I used a photo of when he played back in 1986)

Coach Cavanagh was the brainchild behind St. Baldricks these past two seasons which raised over $15,000 for children's cancer research. His efforts to bring the foundation onto campus this year hopefully will be the beginning of an annual tradition not just for the lacrosse team but the entire campus. I've known coach since my freshman year and I don't just consider him a great coach but a good friend. Without him the defense could not have achieved what it did.

Rookie of the Year: LSM, Charlie Dullea

An All-SUNYAC honorable mention pick this year, Chuck did it all for us this year. Eleven points (7,4), 33 GBs, and 24 caused turnovers (second only to yours truly) are impressive numbers for a freshman.


Most Improved Player: Defense, Will Folgherait

The Bird to my Magic, Will came in this season more motivated than ever. He was in the best shape of his life and it showed on the field. In the battle for feeling relevant among the close defenseman Will led the unit with 43 GBs despite playing in two fewer games than me and Lind. It took every ounce of self control in my body to write that last sentence.


Coaches Award for Leadership: Defense, Dan DeFrancesco

I am a bo$$. Nuff said.


Defensive MVP: Goalie, Danny Caufield

He might not have won WPTZ's play of the week but he was pretty good in our book. He finished with a .580 save percentage and was a rock for us in the net during crunch time. If only he could get some better field swag.

Offensive MVP: Attack, Pete Morgan

The smooth operator. This kid always kept his cool during games. Finished with 52 points (26,26) and is probably the only crease attackman in the country that led his team in assists. Basically ran the man up and gives one of the best no look passes this side of the Mississippi.

MVP: Attack, Kyle Norchi

Was this really even up for debate? Kyle had another monster season with 69 points (51,18). A 1st team ALL-SUNYAC honoree, he was our most valuable player. Period.


Kyle was also invited to the annual North-South senior all-star game. The game will be played on the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend at Goucher College.

Well that about wraps it up folks. Keep tabs on the blog just in case anything of importance happens to the program. I just want to say I had a blast writing the past two years. It was a lot of fun and I hope all of you enjoyed it.

I'm not good at goodbyes so...yea.

-DeFran

Allow myself to introduce...myself

Today was the annual senior awards banquet. A couple of our guys took home some awards.

Tucker Glass was inducted into Chi Alpha Sigma which is a national student-athlete honor society. Tucker also received the Provost Academic Award for having one of the five highest GPA's of student athletes for the Fall 2010 semester. Tucker's a solid student and one day he is going to be a great history teacher.

He does not, however, agree with me that the best way to teach American history to high school students would be to base a curriculum around Forrest Gump and Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". Everything of importance that has happened to America over the past 60 years is covered in those two pieces of media. We should make kids watch Forrest Gump while listening to Billy killing it on the keys. It'd be like watching The Wizard of Oz to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon album. My head just exploded.

Kyle Norchi was nominated for SUNY Plattsburgh's male athlete of the year award. Unfortunately he didn't win it. Still an honor to be considered and we are all proud of him.

Finally it's time for me to toot my own horn a tad. I received the Dr. Richard D. Semmler Award. This is given annually to the male and female senior athlete with the highest cumulative GPA. I'm the first, and hopefully not last, lacrosse player to receive this award. I'd just like to thank...well actually no one. I was the one who had to do all the work and take all the tests. What did you do?

Just kidding.

Honestly just a quick thank you to my parents who drove into my skull that contrary to popular belief college was not a four year long party. Still to this day I remember what my father told me when he dropped me of at my dorm...

"You can have one semester of fun or four years of fun...it's your choice. See you at Thanksgiving"

Wise words from a wise man. Also quick thank you to my sister. She was the guinea pig who went through the system first and I had the advantages of seeing how it was done. I definitely look up to her for what she has accomplished.

Jesus, I should probably stop, it's not like I won an Oscar.

I will say this. The whole time I was walking up I could only think of one thing.



Our team awards got moved to Thursday so more awards to come.

Until then think about this:

According to some estimates, Americans are sitting on $30 billion worth of unredeemed gift cards.
-DeFran

Sanskrit. You're majoring in a 5,000 year old dead language?

The votes are in and three Cards took home post season honors.

Senior Kyle Norchi, Sophomore Nick Travers and Freshman Charlie Dullea all earned All-SUNYAC honors.

Huge congratulations to all the guys they definitely deserved it.

Travers was awesome for us at the midfield. He especially came up for us big this year in SUNYAC's. If I had to put my thumb on the point when I realized Travers really meant business it would have probably been the St.Lawrence game when he put up five goals. Not awarding him second-team would have been a TRAVESTY. <---See what I did there

Chuck is a beast of an LSM. It seemed like he scored a goal in every SUNYAC game (he did, except for Geneseo). He's got some nasty take away checks and is usually one of the fastest kids on the field at any given time. Every game he got the opposing teams top middie and did a great job shutting him down. I hope he doesn't miss me screaming "DON'T THROW STUPID CHECKS CHUCK!" next year during games.

Both these guys are new to the program and honestly the sky is the limit for them.

Finally there is Kyle Norchi, aka Mr.Goose. What can I say about this kid that I haven't in the past 50 posts. I'll be honest I was checking our website all day to find out who got picked, not for myself, but to see if Norchi got first team honors. The past couple of years Kyle has gotten second-team and honestly it's ridiculous. Although I know he would trade all his awards for a SUNYAC playoff berth, I'm glad Kyle finally got the recognition he deserved. He's the best attackman in the conference, period.

Our annual team BBQ is Wednesday so I'll have more awards to announce after that.

Also we have the senior banquet awards tomorrow where more awards will be announced. I think Kyle is up for something there too. Go figure.

Went to go food shopping today and found out that my beloved Powerade had dropped another 10 cents. Over the past two weeks it has dropped 20 cents. Normally I would be happy that my beverage of choice has gotten cheaper. One problem. Since I started food shopping my freshman year of college Powerade hasn't changed its price FOR FOUR YEARS. Now with 2 weeks remaining in my college career the good folks at Coca Cola decide to start slashing prices. Sweet life.

Now that we are well into May some of my best friends from high school that attend other schools have started graduating. It's kind of like a horror movie where one by one your friends get picked off. When someone graduates you all look around at each other, feel bad for them for a couple minutes, and than realize you could be next.

This one's for you Mike Williams...you had a good run.

-Dan DeFrancesco

Business is business. You use a gun, I use a fountain pen. What's the difference?

Happy mothers day!

I know technically it's not anymore but wanted to wish the best to all the moms out there. I know we have plenty on our team so it wouldn't be fair not mentioning them and all the hard work they do for us!

What a weekend! Only one more week of classes, finals and than that is all she wrote. It's amazing how quickly the semester seems to fly by once the season is over. Than again that could have something to do with only having classes two days a week...

Friday was a switch up game. Now I know all of us were already done with classes for the day but I had the boys put in some study hall hours because I was putting on a clinic. Four goals and an assist later I think we all know that a position change to attack for me wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Might I add that I also had the game winner? I'm not trying to say I am better than any of our usual lefty attack men but lets just say Norchi is lucky we're both graduating this year or else I might have decided to take a crack at some of his records.


SUNYAC awards are decided tomorrow. As soon as I hear news from the boss upstairs I'll let you guys know who got what.

A little side note: The blog reached 10,000 views today. For those of you that have been following the blog regularly you might remember how this was something I set out to accomplish in the beginning of the season. I think we clocked in around 8,000 views over the past three months which is AWESOME. I hope you all have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

-DeFran

Thats why no-one will remember your name.

Hope you all had a fun Cinco de Mayo, I know I did. I'll leave it at that.

Today is the switch up game. I'm looking forward to tooling kids down at attack. Trying out my best Kyle Norchi impression.

Nice article that highlights the seniors in Cardinal Points today.

Rain finally stopped in the Burgh. Supposed to have some nice weather this weekend which will be a welcome change.


Stay healthy, stay happy, stay thirsty my friends.
-DeFran

Get yourself some flowers, good clothes, good food, a car, and learn how to use words like 'non-committal', and you are a date and a half, Man.

So mother nature decided against us having out switch up game today. Even in the Spring time Plattsburgh just can't be pleasant. If this weather keeps up Lake Champlain is going to overtake Plattsburgh and Champy will eat us all. Somebody needs to call Jeremy Wade from River Monsters.

Still hasn't set in that my career at Plattsburgh is over, hence why I continue to blog about a team I am no longer a part of. I hope I don't turn out like that one guy at the concert that keeps screaming "ENCORE! ENCORE!"

We might be done playing lacrosse but we are not done winning awards up here in the Burgh. Both our team and our head coach, P.J. Kavanagh, received awards for their exceptional work as community service leaders. We are kind of a big deal.

Tomorrow is Cinco De Mayo! Who doesn't love that holiday? Nothing like celebrating like they do south of the border.



-DeFran

Well, all I'm saying is that I want to look back and say that I did I the best I could while I was stuck in this place.

Well that's it and that's all folks.

I apologize for not posting something sooner. Been a bit busy tying up some loose ends.

Senior speeches on Friday were great. Really some emotional stuff. I hope the younger guys listened to what us old bags had to say.

Saturday was tough. We played good lacrosse for 50 minutes against one of the top teams in the country. In the end they outplayed us in the fourth quarter. I will say this. Before the game I asked all my teammates to give me and the rest of the seniors 100% for the whole game. I have no doubt in my mind that every single one of my teammates left it all out there on the field for me and for that I am forever grateful.

All good things must come to an end and the PSU 2011 season is no exception. We definitely had a good run. I can't say I am completely happy with the way the season went, obviously, but I am definitely not completely disappointed. We had a good run and accomplished a lot of things. It's just too bad we fell short at the end of the year.

Even though the season is over we still have a couple more blogs left. Tomorrow is the annual switch up game when all players on the team play different positions than they are used to. Lookout for a killer attack of Me, Will Folgherait and Tucker Glass. I'm gonna do my best Kyle Norchi impression.

Post season awards are still to come as well so I will pass along that information as well as I hear about it.

Also we received the VISION awarded for community service. Ceremony is tomorrow so I'll let you know as soon as find more about it.

What else did you expect for this blog?




-DeFran