To Run or Not to Run? Loyola Looking to Strike a Balance

The foundation of Charley Toomey’s best teams at Loyola have often been predicated on exploiting the comfort of playing within chaos.

So, what happens when the transition opportunities the Greyhounds have long thrived in become harder to come by?

That’s a question that’s stared at Loyola for the last two seasons, in part because of a lack of possessions. Last year, the Greyhounds won 40.1 percent of their faceoffs, ranking 68th of 76 teams nationally. This year, they’re at 40.7 percent and 70th in Division I.

And yet Friday’s 12-10 defeat of Lehigh provides something of a blueprint for Loyola (4-6, 2-2 Patriot) to make itself a factor in the conference race — much like last year, when it scrapped its way into the league final before losing to Army.

Loyola was just 7 of 26 on faceoffs, but almost made up the entirety of the possession deficit on turnovers. The Greyhounds had 13; Lehigh finished with 24.

In other words, transition helped even when quick strikes off faceoffs were unlikely.

“We only had four turnovers at halftime, but you watch that game and you certainly didn’t feel that way because there were some 50-50 ground balls and even some 80-20 that we should have had that we didn’t get,” Toomey said. “We have to take care of those ground balls and dig in. We have to be clean, we have to be organized defensively and hopefully we can scrap for a few back like we did [against Lehigh] and get the ball back to our offense.”

Think of it as frenetic in bursts. Loyola still wants to run because it has defensive midfielders like Mustang Sally who are effective in transition. But it also has to be smart with the clock, knowing it needs to get its defense a rest.

Most of all, it needs to cash in when opportunities present themselves. That happened against Lehigh when Adam Poitras scored once when a loose ball dribbled through to him five yards from the crease and another time in transition. Luke Murphy’s man-up goal — the Greyhounds’ last of the night — was deposited off a rebound.

“I think it’s a time and place,” said Poitras, who has a team-high 24 goals. “You have to recognize that if we’ve played three or four straight possessions of defense, we’re probably not looking to slip a pass across the crease for a dunk. We obviously want to run fast. We think we have good sticks in the rope unit, and they handle the ball really well. We have a lot of faith in them, and we think if we can easier ones, it will help the team out a lot.”

Much like last year, when Loyola picked off Johns Hopkins and Maryland in February before sputtering, the Greyhounds opened with a sparkling victory (at home against Georgetown). They’ve now won back-to-back games for the first time all season, and get Bucknell (3-7, 2-3) and Holy Cross (2-7, 0-5) the next two weeks before closing against Navy (6-4, 3-1) and Army (8-1, 3-1).

“It’s time to stack them,” Toomey said. “That’s going to be my mantra for this team, to just keep doing what we have to do to keep stacking wins in the league.”