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Tomorrow the Delaware Blue Hens meet up with the Michigan Wolverines for the 7th time. UD and the Big Blue have split the first six matchups with the cumulative score adding up to 66-69 in favor of Michigan. In last year’s game the Hens had all the momentum early and looked upstoppable with a 9-4 lead with just over two minutes left in the first half. The stadium was going crazy. Unfortunately, Michigan’s Nick Rowlett won a faceoff and went straight to the goal to make it 9-5. The Hens then lost the ball in their offensive zone with 10 seconds left in the half, and after a timeout, Peter Thompson took the ball coast-to-coast and scored with less than a second left on the clock. Momentum gone.

Last year was a wasted opportunity for the Hens losing 16-12 after edging out the Wolverines in nearly every stat (shots 44-38, turnovers 13-14, clears 16-17 vs 16-18, ground balls 30-26) but were slightly beaten on faceoffs 16-13 and most importantly saves 12 to just 7 (admittedly a tough game for Matt Kilkeary). Important to note, the Hens played without an injured Mike Robinson in last year’s matchup.

This year the Hens will be facing a very different Wolverine squad that returns a lot of familiar faces like Michael Boehm (45g 28a last year) on attack, Bo Lockwood, Ryan Cohen (on midfield this year vs attack when he had 27g 30a), middie Aiden Mulholland, defensemen Kees Van Wees, Jack Whitney and both Hunter Tayler and Shane Carr in goal. Additionally, the Wolverines have bolstered the defending Big10 Championship squad with some impactful grad transfers from Princeton, Lehigh and Bucknell. The three Princeton transfers are all-IVY SSDM, Beau Pederson, Christian Ronda (middie) who had 21 goals 11 assists last year and LSM Cathal Roberts. The Lehigh transfer is 6’2” off-ball attackman Justin Tiernan who scored 46 goals last year and has 22 goals in just five games this year. The Bucknell transfer is close defenseman Andrew Stanzel who had 27 caused turnovers last year along with 35GBs. This team is LOADED with talent.

What the Hens will need to do to win
First, the Hens will need to contain the Wolverines prolific attack unit especially since they will most likely get killed on faceoffs with Justin Wietfeldt (.634 winning percentage) taking the majority of draws. Boehm is the guy who really makes the offense flow though. He can beat a defender one-on-one from x and is equally talented at finding teammates open on the crease. This year, that open guy has been Tiernan who is deadly from inside 10 yards. I am sure that Tate Wasson will have his hands full with Boehm. Bo Lockwood is also very talented from behind the net. He is more dangerous as a feeder than a shooter but is very quick and shifty. It would not surprise me to see DeLuca handle Lockwood with a short stick (Aiden Fritz) and ensure that middies Cohen and Ronda are always covered with a pole.

Last week the Hens were a little sloppy with slides and coverage inside. If that happens this week, the game could get ugly in a hurry.

Also, the Hens will need to watch Cohen coming out of the box at midfield. He terrorized Jacksonville earlier this week with this tactic. Cohen is super quick and the Hens should pick him up immediately when he subs on. They need to put a body on him before he gets inside of 15 yards. Guy is deadly from the wing.

Offensively, Delaware will need to do what they always do so well. The Hens have a ton of speed and quickness at midfield. They need to beat the Michigan defenders up top and get the defense spinning. They need to look for fast break opportunities and avoid too many extended one-on-ones. The Wolverines have a senior-laden defense that hunts balls. Grad transfers Roberts (10CTs) and Stanzel, in particular, put a ton of pressure on offenses. Hens should share the ball and look for the best matchups, like they did last week (got a little unlucky with Penn’s insanely hot goalie). Michigan has an over-zealous defense that has only faced one team with a great offense this year (Virginia) and got lit up for 19 goals. I am clearly not comparing the Hens to Virginia, but if UD moves the ball quickly and limits turnovers, there is no reason they can’t get to 13-14 goals. The defense will need to play nearly perfect to win this game, but it should be fun.

Another thing to note, it is going to be raining tomorrow. The Hens have been awesome in the rain over the last couple of years. Hopefully, this trend continues. I will be there in head-to-toe Gore-tex. Can’t wait.

LI Lax, Thanks for the always insightful scouting report. How good are the UM Goalies?

BlueHenBill wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2024 1:37 pm LI Lax, Thanks for the always insightful scouting report. How good are the UM Goalies?

Both of their goalies are fairly mediocre. Through five games they have given up just a touch under 11 goals a game. Hunter Taylor has a .532 save percentage and back up Shane Carr is at 33%.

Interestingly, in last year's game between the two teams coach Conry replaced Taylor at halftime after giving up 9 first-half goals with only 6 saves. Shane Carr came in and held the Hens to just 3 second-half goals while making 6 saves. In 2022, Carr did a number on Delaware after the Hens took an early 4-0 lead on four shots. He made 20 saves the rest of the game while only giving up 4 more goals. Carr is a streaky goalie. Would not be surprised at all to see him tomorrow if Taylor struggles even slightly.

Great stuff LI Lax. Need to get your awesome write ups from text to audio and get you on a future podcast episode this season

I’m going - maybe with vinyl poncho over goretex.

Penn just beat #1 Duke 14-12.

Michigan on 8-1 run, Hens trail 10-5 with 7 minutes left in third.

Michigan wins 13-8.

Michigan was 8-0 on faceoffs in third quarter, 16-9 for game.

The Hens were stressed to try and challenge the Wolverines and any chance they had disappeared with the really slow start to the 2nd half. Gave up a couple of really easy goals there, like they weren’t ready to play after coming out. I have some questions on strategy /tactics for LILax too.

What miserable weather for the game too!

Third quarter always seems to be decisive when we lose. And not just the last two games - also going back to the John Grant Jr. era.

The ground balls, clearing efforts and face offs really worked to keep the Hens down. Thankfully, turnovers were high for UM as well as UD.

The high line UM put at midfield to challenge the Hens’ clearing efforts was pretty effective. The Hens seemed to be surprised by it and not sure how to counter it. I don’t know why they didn’t push the clear at times when UM middies were retreating to midfield to form that line or why they couldn’t get movement and guys open deep behind it. Oh well.

UM defense was very effective, clearly they came into the game with the goal to limit Mike Robinson. They also kept the UD attack pretty far out from goal for most of the game. JP Ward scored three early goals but Robinson just never got going. He did have three assists though.

77HEN wrote: ↑Sat Mar 02, 2024 5:36 pm The ground balls, clearing efforts and face offs really worked to keep the Hens down. Thankfully, turnovers were high for UM as well as UD.

The high line UM put at midfield to challenge the Hens’ clearing efforts was pretty effective. The Hens seemed to be surprised by it and not sure how to counter it. I don’t know why they didn’t push the clear at times when UM middies were retreating to midfield to form that line or why they couldn’t get movement and guys open deep behind it. Oh well.

UM defense was very effective, clearly they came into the game with the goal to limit Mike Robinson. They also kept the UD attack pretty far out from goal for most of the game. JP Ward scored three early goals but Robinson just never got going. He did have three assists though.

LAX TV announcer stated during UD's clears that the UD players in the offensive zone needed to go deeper so that UM's defemders would need to go with them instead of hanging close to midfield where they made it harder for UD to clear.

Couldn’t make the game this weekend…although I tried.

Seems a 20-minute thing in most states takes 2 hours and 20 minutes in Delaware. Wheeeeeee…

But, I am still officially a good boy (and it still took over 2 hours).



Again…the big picture isn’t changed: we had to win the CAA in order to make the tourney. Make improvements and focus on that goal.


Early wish: please, let’s have good weather for April 13th. Anyone that wants to share a beer, some food and some good stories, that date is the projected tailgate.

As mentioned earlier, the failure to clear the ball killed the Hens on Saturday. You can't miss 7 clears and expect to win against a top 15 team like Michigan. On the other side, Michigan was a perfect 22 for 22 on clears. All the other stats were pretty even except for faceoffs. Interestingly, Logan Premtaj won the first half faceoffs 8 to 5 before getting dominated in the second half 11-1. Premtaj also had 2 CT's and Joe Speers had 1 to get back the ball after losing the initial faceoff, so the stats weren't quite so one-sided in reality. But to be perfectly clear, the Hens didn't lose this game because of faceoffs. They lost the game in the first three minutes of the second half when they slid way too early or refused to switch on obvious picks and left players rolling to the goal unchecked.

I didn't notice till halfway through the second quarter that the Hens most experienced and consistent middie Cam Acchione was not playing. He was not dressed for the game, so I can only assume he got hurt in practice after completing the game against Penn last week. Hopefully, he will be back soon. UD is relying on some really young offensive midfielders this year. Cam was missed for sure.

MIchigan sent double teams after Mike Robinson and JP Ward from the jump. There were a couple times where the two attackmen forced the issue a bit, but both had pretty decent games. Delaware will need more from the midfielders as the season progresses. Good teams can game plan shutting down two guys on offense when the others are not presenting any real threat. Nick Jessen found a way to beat his defender up top, but the other middies were not as successful.

Onto Monmouth. Hens hopefully will get healthy and start rolling. Need to pound the CAA early. They play the better teams late in the season.