2021 NCAA DII MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP

May 30, 2021

Dan Sheehan

Le Moyne Dolphins

Media Conference

Lemoyne - 12, Lenoir-Rhyne - 6

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Le Moyne Coach Dan Sheehan. Coach, an opening statement.

COACH SHEEHAN: I'm sure we're no different than the other seven teams that had the opportunity to be here this weekend. But I think what today is is a decision that 56 guys made back in the middle of August; that if there was an opportunity, we were going to be ready for it. And as we kept flipping the calendar and the opportunities seemed like they were still there, the 56 guys in our locker room continued to just make great decisions, stick together, and just keep chugging along towards the common goal that we've set with our program here. And it's to get to exactly where we are right now.

Q. This is your sixth title, fourth perfect season. Where does this one rank among all the others?

COACH SHEEHAN: I'm not going to bite. This group is special. This is the only group that had to deal with what everybody's known has been going on for the last 16 months. And this group is different. They've had to deal with that. So I would never compare teams. It's not fair to the guys that played on those previous teams. I'm just so thankful that I had just an incredible team that did absolutely everything they could to get to this point.

Q. What did you say to the guys at halftime that kind of sparked that crazy run in the second half?

COACH SHEEHAN: Oh, boy, you probably saw a little overcoaching in the first half. And it may be boring to everybody out there, but we are who we are and we do what we do.

We've got one of the best defenders in the country in Nate Arnold. And what he does for us, what we ask him to do is be kind of the glue guy. When we put him on 42, we kind of -- that was my decision about two days ago. You know, we kind of took the brains of the operation and took him out a little bit. And we were lucky -- I thought we were lucky to get to halftime. And as soon as I walked in the locker room door at halftime, I said, hey, Connor, this is a matchup that was made for you. And I thought Connor took him out of the game, and that allowed Nate to get back to doing what he does so well, that's being the glue guy for us.

Offensively, I didn't think we played poorly in the first half, we just got more possessions in the second half and capitalized on them. So I'm confident enough sitting here today telling you that I'm a much better coach when I have better players. And hats off to the boys, how well they played.

Q. Six titles. I don't know if there's a way to concisely say this, but what is the thing that kind of binds these things together and makes a championship team?

COACH SHEEHAN: Matt Hutchings and Zach Pierce had just incredible games. Frank Delia played absolutely outstanding in the second half. And not only made saves but gave us transition. Just not a guy -- it doesn't need to be about me. I'm just fortunate enough I've never bought a ticket to one of these games. And I got a really good seat to watch some really talented kids. I thought Sam Kury did a great job making some adjustments, basically eliminating transition.

And I joked a couple weeks ago with our guys about I'd like to get a T-shirt that this is short stick D me to you, because that crew was absolutely phenomenal today. Once we got past the first five minutes of the game I'm not sure that there was a short stick that got beat. Sorry, we can talk later if you want to talk about me, but just it's a team win today for sure.

Q. I was intrigued by your analysis of Nate and Connor making that switch. Could you just go a little more in depth? Obviously both great players. What was it about Connor that made it a little more effective allowed Nate to be a glue guy, which is his strength? Could you go into that a little bit?

COACH SHEEHAN: Well, you're going to have an opportunity to watch a guy play tomorrow that Connor covered a few times back in the day when said young man played at the Division II level. Similar type matchups and Connor was a no-brainer at that point in time. Like I said earlier, it was probably overcoaching on my part. Nate's length, waiting for a text from Coach Boeheim to see if Nate has any eligibility to play the 2-3 zone because of his length. Nate does so much. He covers so much ground.

When he was around the ball the whole time, I think in the first half we lost a little bit of -- we lost the ability, I think, to cover space. So that was the switch there.

Q. Your team scored 12 goals today. And the number 12 is an important to your program based on a jersey number. If you could talk a little bit about that, please.

COACH SHEEHAN: Yes. There's a young man, his name is Kaiden Tubbert. We lost him. Don't have the exact number of days, 400-plus days ago. He's a big reason for why we're here. He's a huge piece of our heart. He was with us every single day. He's on the field with us. He's in the locker room with us. One of those guys that was a best friend to every single person in the locker room. Was probably my fourth kid, the amount of time that we spent together. Yeah.

Q. I don't think we've talked much about the game you had in net. We talked a lot about your defense but I thought you had some great goalie play. Can you explain some of that?

COACH SHEEHAN: I think once we got into the locker room at halftime and made the adjustments that we did, I thought that if not all -- I think probably all of them, if not close, all of their shots were contested. And I think 42 is one heck of a player. There's no doubt about that.

And we certainly knew that coming in. But I think in the second half there weren't too many uncontested shots. And I think Frank had an opportunity to make a couple of saves there and got himself quickly into the game in the second half. And like I said, that helped us from a transition standpoint.

When you can get into your offense with 70 seconds left on the shot clock, that's not bad. And, boy, all of a sudden I think we're up by six and there's eight, nine minutes left in the shot clock, we're just -- the only thing we're in a hurry to do is to cut the net down at that point.