Once Upon a Time..

Once upon a time, in a little city called Plattsburgh, lived a hungry little cardinal with the tenacity and courage of a lion... Okay who am I kidding, I am an elementary ed major, not an author of books for elementary school kids, although that did not sound too bad.

How is everyone doing on this brisk Thursday night? I hope all you readers are in a warm comfortable environment and if you are, stay there, if you are not so lucky, like myself, well layer up! It is amazing how fast the days go by when I think of the last time I blogged. I have been overwhelmed with a couple of midterms and student teaching, and things have just been moving so fast.

I apologize, I am just not full of words tonight which is shocking. I left you last time before we left for Morrisville. Man what a ride that was, can we say middle of nowhere? After finally arriving we began warming up. The opposing team then came marching down hootin' and hollerin'.. REAL trash talkers! I think that they expected that to intimidate us but instead it just pissed us off. We used this anger to come out with a quick 6-goal quarter that was enough to hold them off. After a hot first quarter we did not play with the same intensity but still managed to accomplish what we set out for. Although we pulled off the W, it felt as though our minds were focused on the week to come. Even though this win felt good, we wanted to get a win that would prove our legitimacy. We knew that the next two games (Clarkson and Cortland) would be the perfect opportunity.

I was going into this game having never lost to Clarkson. We knew that this team would be more challenging this year having been a young team who were finally coming together. The game came down to two things, time of possession and penalties. Clarkson did a good job of keeping the ball away from our best players, and we just could not find a way to give our man-down defense and Gordie a break. It is the interesting aspect of the game of lacrosse which often gets overlooked, TOP. Time of possession is huge. You can have Paul Rabil, Mikey Powell, and even Rory Pedrick all on the same team and if you limit their touches, you could beat the best of them all. Now, nothing against Travers, Brett, or Tommy, but they are no Paul Rabil. However, they are some of our best players and when they play more defense than offense, something is not going the way you want it to. Well anyways, I guess you can tell where this is going. We lost 10-7 in a game where they just played to their strengths better then we did.

Now the point of this blog was to catch everyone up, put the 2012 spring break video up, and finally talk about Cortland. Well your caught up, and the video is still uploading, so Cortland it is. What more is there to say? #2 team in the nation, plays fast and tough, the favorites in just about every game they play, and the list could continue but then I would sound like I am a fan, and I am not...Is this not why sports are played? Is this not why we workout so hard in the off-season? A lot of the guys especially my year, know what it feels like to get stomped on by them two years in a row. I think this year we know what we have to do, we know how we must play almost perfect, but that is what we have prepared to do, and we know it will not be easy, nothing worth anything ever is, but that is what makes it worth while.
Personally, I just do not want this season to be looked at as being a team who beat up on weak teams and got bent over by stronger teams.

Tomorrow we have a 7:30 AM practice to go over some things for Saturday. We leave at 3pm for our hotel in Cortland. I need to get some shut eye for this practice, but before I go, what you have allllllll been waiting for.. The 2012 Spring Break video...

-Enjoy Mike Santi


sikkke.. due too some seriousssssssssss complications this video has been edited probably 15 times and I can am still having problems with YouTube. These copyright laws and regulations really chap my @ss..  it will be out soon

On The Road Again-Willie Nelson

Six long away games, one home opener, and here we are, back on the road again for another three straight games. Before I get ahead of myself, let me recapture Wednesday's home opening victory over Norwich University. With fuels running very low after a long spring break and only Sunday to recuperate, we were back at the drawing boards in preparation for the Cadets of Norwich. Norwich is most notably known for being a Military College, as well as for having an outstanding hockey program that competes in division three. The Cadets were coming in 0-2 and hungry for a victory. We knew we seriously could not just take them easy or else it would be an embarrassing performance in front of our home crowd, who put on quite the attendance show. It was probably due to the gorgeous weather that we have been having up here in the burgh.

With all conditions perfect and a brand new mix tape that I put together the night before that got us pretty pumped, no excuses could be made now. A huge night from Travers, Hastings, and Lawrence and it was pretty much the beginning of the end for the Cadets. Our defense ( Lind, Phillips, and Gargiulo/Glass) and Gordie played exceptional, only allowing 1 goal before they were retired for the night. However we did suffer a minor lose that night with a scary yet not serious injury to Joey Kramer. Joey doing what Joey does, as you guys might have seen in the recent video, threw a one handed wrap check where he actually dislocated his shoulder. With the help of our doctor and training staff, a quick 1, 2, and 3... and it was popped back in, but still was the conclusion of his night. At the end of the game, I think you can give a great deal of compliments to the guys who normally do not play a lot, and when they all got in, they showed that they are capable of stepping up and that they are not just fading away due to playing time. Guys like AT (Andrew Tralango) who is just on the verge of being a big contributor, had his first collegiate goal in some pretty fashion. Freshman Frankie Falcone held it down at the face-off X going two for two and hitting pipe twice on two good shots.

Okay, well I have been working diligently on the spring break video but with other larger issues like midterms, housing for next semester, and scholarships going on, I cannot issue a release date yet. It is currently 11:30 and I am the only one in this blue room left for the night, kind of creepy. Tomorrow we head 4 1/2 hours to Morrisville at 8AM. Game is scheduled for 3PM. The team will be with out a couple of key players, Joey Krammer (injury), Mike Lind (sickness), and Will Hockenjos (injury), but we will have to get it done.

Before I go I want to give another crazy shout out to MIT again. They somehow have received top 20 votes on InsideLacrosse for this past week. With a 2-1 record I do not know what constitutes such a decision but hey, I am a huge fan of what they are doing over there and I have much respect for all the guys sticking this season out and playing with what you have and making it work. That is what defines TEAM, if you ask me.

Wrapping this night up, because rest is much needed, I leave you with two pretty awesome videos. One is one that I had much to do with in terms of the editing process. It is an inside GoPro video look of snowboarding and skiing Whiteface Mountain, a huge attraction up here in North Country, filmed by sophomore Alex Carnoxide featuring coach Pedrick and sophomore Anthony Pafundi. The second is a a documentary of a very, very talented high school lacrosse team in which one of our own is from. Jamesville-Dewitt, Gordie Ghering's alma mater, has been featured in Inside Lacrosse on their tremendous accomplishments at the high school level. The video is done pretty awesome if you ask me.

Hope to see you all tomorrow. Good night.

-Mike Santi #12

Bitter Sweet...but still sweet

Does anyone have an extra hand I could borrow, seriously?! Things have been out of control for me lately. I have been doing things like a mad man honestly. Currently I am working on the three YouTube Videos, one is of the first trip down to Long Island for the first two games, the second of spring break from LI to Philly to Virginia Beach, and the third is an awesome look at some snowboarding clips filmed on Whiteface Mountain which kind of gives future recruits a look at how awesome it is up here. On top of that I am trying to make the ideal warm up tape for Wednesday's home game versus Norwich. ON TOP of THAT I am trying to be a productive student and study for my midterms next week as well as being able to keep my eyes open while student teaching full days in a third grade class room. That is hard enough with a full nights rest, let alone 5-6 hours. The guys in Virginia Beach were all busting my chops, "why do you do it?" "How come you are the one that got put in charge of doing all this stuff?" Truthfully, I do it because I enjoy doing it, I know sometimes it is a lot and I probably put too much time and effort into it, but I know it is for a good cause and in the future I will be able to go on YouTube and search for these videos to show my friends and even kids. (Yeah dad, it will not be some grainy fuzzy black and white film where numbers can hardly be made out so you can tell me that is you scoring all the touchdowns when I can barely see.--pure tough love for the old man)

Take a look of my computer screen... The blog top left, warm up tape, top right, and video editor bottom. Yikessss.


So anyways, like I said on the previous blogs, I am making these short and sweet from now on, that is the new motto. Except for this blog, there is little sweet and more sour a taste in my mouth as I quietly reiterate what I am going to write next. First off, this spring break was by far with out a doubt the most enjoyable break I have had in my experience at Plattsburgh. I mean truthfully everything just went great. Starting off in Long Island and getting a win to start the break off was huge. Having a night to stay home one last time with the family was also great. After the wonderful fundraising event out in Kings Park, the trip to Philly felt like a breeze. We stayed in a wonderful hotel with amazing views that only money could top. Only thing not good about Philly was the Ursinus game. As a player, you lose and you say okay short memory and you move on, and you learn from there. Ursinus was a huge test coming in for us, and I think everyone felt as if it just slipped through our fingers.

Well moving on... right after a tough loss the team made the 8 hour trip down to Virginia Beach, arriving at about three o clock in the morning. Please do not jump back in your chair, it is a reoccurring theme for this trip as you will see later. I must say it was completely worth it, boy was Virgina Beach unbelievable. Beach front views 24/7 for four days! I was in paradise. All of us took advantage of all of our time there by waking up early the following morning and walking the beach and the boulevard which was filled with shops for tourists like myself. In the last blog I showed you all a picture of our hotel views, so I will let you all wait for the spring break video for more inside looks.

Down there we faced off against number 17th ranked Ithaca University who we knew coming in was going to be a challenge, but nothing that we could not compete with. The game was hard fought but it came down to who played better for those two hours and Ithaca did indeed. We wrapped up the trip with an opponent who this program is nothing but familiar with, Western Connecticut. Coming in with a 3-0 streak against them (noted to me by alumni Dan DeFran) we were not looking to wrap up break with a third straight loss. Even with a tough day at the faceoff X for myself, the guys had my back and we were able to pull through with a 12-7 win to extend the streak to 4-0. Back on the bus we went after a great tailgate provided by the parents who made the trip all the way down from all parts of New York. 12 hours, ETA to Plattsburgh, 3:30 AM. Someone get me a Tylenol PM!

So you read the title and might of wondered why I chose bitter sweet... When you think back to last year and our spring break and the video you might have all seen, you might remember that we went 4-0, which brought our overall to 6-0 on the year at that point. This year just feels different. Going 2-2 actually does not feel that bad, I think myself as well as others feel that the level of competition was more beneficial to this program as well as us as a team. We are aware what the top teams in the nation are doing and what we can do to beat some of the better teams coming up on our schedule by suffering these loses now. It has definitely been eye-opening to say the least. I think you will see a big improvement in our overall team play when our schedule picks up soon.

I must go now, I am uploading this first video of Maritime and Farmingdale, which you can see below. It is certainly not my best, but like I said, I am pressed for time and I hope you enjoy it anyways.. Wednesday is our home opener against Norwich University at 7pm. I hope you can all make it and if not I am pretty positive there will be live stats. Also I encourage you still to enter the world of Twitter. My newest followers are the Dullea's who were able to enjoy the live stats versus Western Connecticut that a team member provided. (@Platts_lax)

I want to also throw a shout out to my little bro who scored his first collegiate goal this season like myself. However, I might be a little embarrassed to mention that he plays defense. MIT is on a roll and they are really fighting with what they have. Great job boys! #Engineers #NerdPride #31
Until next time...

-Mike Santi #12

Short and Sweet Please

Hey everyone, okay so I had a "realization" on the bus back to the hotel tonight. After reading some division 1 team blogs, I decided that it makes a lot more sense to write more often but make it right to the point. Until now I had been saving up loads and loads of news, gossips, and what not to compile into large blogs. I realized it has been becoming hard to remember all the good details you guys want to hear.

Okay so let me catch everyone up. Currently we are 3-2, but we are rewinding back to the beginning of this spring break. The first game of break started down in Long Island again. Haha who can complain about playing on Long Island? It never gets old! All of our fans packed out the bleachers at Levittown Saturday night, it was great. Manhattanville was no cake walk but we got it done. Most of the guys suspended from first couple of games were back and able to play. Freshman James Read really stepped up to the plate and fulfilled the void lost by injured freshman Brendan Damn by scoring nine points, 5 goals 4 assists. His performance earned him SUNYAC Player of the Week, congrats Read. Now, usually I am not a selfish person, but I got to get it out there for those fans who were not there to witness, and for the stat keepers who messed up. Not to take anything away from James, but he only scored 4 goals. The other goal was from a guy named Mike Santisteban. I officially recorded my first goal of the season versus Farmingdale and my second in this game. Just throwing that out there. It is not being selfish, I am just trying to catch up to some guy named Kyle Norchi. Keep chipping away man.

Following a great fund raising event in Kings Park on Sunday, the team headed off to the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. We prepped ourselves by watching consecutive episodes of Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I was pretty excited to visit a new city and be able to compare it New York, but then again is anything really comparable? We arrived at about 11pm and the whole team was pretty blown away by the rooms we were staying in. 10th and 11th floor suites with flat screen tvs, full kitchen, dinning room, and a balcony views that would impress just about anyone. Most of the guys just hit the hay the first night to rest up for our first day off. The next day we toured Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed. It was pretty awesome, but pretty boring, sorry John Wayne (our tour guide).
(This painting lies inside Independence Hall, but the funny thing is, it is a painting of the signing of the Constitution and not the Declaration of Independence.) Oh well...


Is everybody here familiar with the U, formerly known as the University of Miami? Well I guess Ursinus did not get the message. I do not want to talk trash, but cmon man. You can not represent a small school in Pennsylvania as the 'U', hundreds of miles away from the real thing. Well anyways, Ursinus was finally going to be a true test for us, and everyone was pretty pumped to go out there and make a statement. I do not want to make excuses but I really think we shot ourselves in the foot and it is frustrating because if you were not there to see how poorly we played and just looked at the box score, you would not understand.

Alright I know this was not my best, but I needed to just catch things up. Right now we are in beautiful Virginia Beach and we are loving it. I will have another blog up on the bus ride home after Saturdays game versus Western Connecticut. I am also working on a video for YouTube that I think is just going to be a compilation of some game clips and clips from us just hanging out. You will be able to get a better picture of how great things have been so far on this trip. You can get a little tease by this picture of our view from our rooms.
Stay tuned on Twitter or check back in soon to read about the rest of our trip. Hopefully the video will be ready soon also.

-Mike Santi #12

Are titles obligatory? How Aboutt... A lot to write, a lot to read, and not a lot of time...

After a short night of sleep, a full day of teaching, and a nice swim session at Memorial, I am finally ready to sit down and write this bad boy. Question is where do I begin...? So most of you have already seen the publication of some of our gear on LacrossePlayground.com. Well, not too long after, InsideLacrosse published an article featuring our three captains wearing our new jerseys from photos taken by our assistant coach Jared Burns.
--Found here for those who have not seen--
http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2012/02/29/suny-plattsburgh-gear-looking-spiffy-gear-zone

So last blog I told you how we were taking roster pictures that day. They are up on the site and damn we look good. Steph Dutton our SID, did a great job as always. Well guys, we do have some good ones...

The annual goofiest photo of 2012 goes to the one and only Peter Knutson. Caught in a moment that looks very personal, if you catch my drift.



The next one goes to a guy who has been getting a lot of photo action, but hey the swag here is undeniable. I mean the product, the chops, the stash, it is just ALL there.
Moving right along. Friday we left at 10am for Long Island. Setting record time by any bus driver I have been with, Paul da man got us down their in about 5 hours. It is always great to play at Maritime, especially for me because I spent two summers there for football camp and had some good memories there. All of us were really focused and just excited to play guys in different colored jerseys. Let me tell you, five weeks of pre-season really gets to you after a while, and this first game was a display of how hard we have been working and our potential from here on out. We really came out with a bang against them, and as an upperclassmen, it was good to see us continue that intensity after halftime as well.
Tailgate hosted at the end of the game was phenomenal as usual. I really am not just saying that to sound like a suck up. Our parents are simply unbelievable. This parent association I think has exceeding any persons', who have been associated with this program, expectations. You could not get the same food at the fanciest catering hall, and trust me, been there done that. I really want to thank the Krammers. I mean come on. They are just out of this world. The shoes that had to be filled after Donna Glynn left were enormous and Veronica Krammer has slipped into them as if they were a pair of her own. I do not know if the news has been spread. I am sure it has, but Joey -Filth- Krammer was awarded SUNYAC Player of the week with his 11 point weekend. I think his parents should be named SUNYAC Parents of the week especially for organizing the dinner Saturday afternoon at the Lindenhurst pavilion. You just can not ask for more.
So Sunday we faced off against Farmingdale in a rematch of last years disappointing loss. As far as we were concerned, we were the underdogs with something to prove. We knew it was going to be a close one, with factors like time of possession, ground-balls, and face-offs being the difference. Personally I had a chip on my soldier from a poor performance last year that I was urging to get rid of. With a stance full of Plattsburgh fans, better then a home game actually, we really played a sufficient first half. I was able to get my first collegiate goal, and man did it feel good (88 BABY). Hopefully that will not be my last. With the great play of our goalie Gordie, a scoreless second half for us was enough to hold them off. Unfortunately a big win also brought a big loss. Freshman Brenden Damm suffered a broken collarbone midway through the game and is officially out for now. Everyone is wishing him a fast and healthy recovery.
Okay we are almost there! I want to congratulate coach Ryan for a 2-0 start to his head coaching career, but I know him well and I know he is no where close to satisfied with where we are. We had the day off of practice today which was much needed. This week we prepare for the first of four games during our spring break down in LI, PA, and VA (notice how LI is abbreviated as if it is a state, yeah that is righttt). Yup, no Mexico or Punta Cana for us, strictly business. We hope to get some wins against some big name schools to finally earn some respect in division three. We know what we have to do and how we have to do it. I think that it will be one of the most intense and fierce stretch of games until conference play.
So currently besides my school work I am working on a million things. I am trying to set up a photo sharing account on any website that is FREE, so far that has been nothing but a fail because of trial restrictions. I have a ton of photos from both games from my pops and my girlfriend's dad. I am talking close to 1,000 photos. If any parents or who ever wants any player or just some good shots you can send me an email at m.santi002@gmail.com and just let me know what you are looking for. As of now that project is on a hold because I am working on a warm up tape for my brothers lacrosse team over at MIT, as well as putting a video together of this weekend probably combined with spring break though, and I am trying to maintain being a student also. Man I should get a check from Plattsburgh State for this. I will also be randomly tweeting pictures that I think are good shots on @platts_lax, so if you still have not been convinced to make a Twitter, I would highly advise it. I would say there are close to 10 or 15 parent followers, 70 followers in all. It has received so much publicity, it is unreal. Well, if face-offs are not bad enough for my wrists, blogging will sure do the trick. I think I have said what needs to be said, and I must go study for a biology quiz. Two games into a long season ahead, but we achieved what we wanted this past week, and now need to continue to work hard this week in practice.
I wish you all a wonderful night.

-#12 Mike Santi

Two great shots from this weekend...


-it has to be played... after Tommy and Nicky decided it was a good idea to yell all the lyrics on the way up last night. Cheers to Sunday.