Player of the week

By Reece

I took over the Player of the Week duties from Patrick (call it veto power from the CEO), but no matter who writes it this week, one thing is for sure, you know the player of the week is coming from the Brown University Bears...

This match-up between #13 Brown and #2 Cornell was highly anticipated as Cornell was in position to take the Ivy Championship away from Brown on Stevenson Field in Providence during the lacrosse alumni weekend which brought back fans and alums from all over including the entire 1973 Brown Bears.

Brown State alums going nuts in the 4th quarter.
Bonus: How many Overtime Media founders can you find?

The game was a total battle, tightly fought all the way through - the biggest story being the notable goaltending of Jordan Burke who made 18 saves on the day, 7 which came during the final quarter. But strong goaltending was not enough to beat the Big Red... an outstanding performance by the Bears defense - Fallon, Cassil, Westerman, Greenberg, Hardy, Melvin, Foote - kept Cornell in check, in particular holding Max Seibald to just one goal. The midfield got it done with guys like Walsh, Seligman, and Williams battling for tough ground balls and getting the ball started on offense. Finally, the attack put the game away with outstanding, multiple goal performances from Feinberg, Hollingsworth and Muldoon. And all these guys executed on an excellent game plan from Coach Tiffany and his staff. At the end of the day, the score was 11-9 Bears, and the fans went nuts, rushing the field to celebrate with the team.

Bruno the Bear dancing atop the scoreboard.

If it seems like everyone had a big hand in the win, it's because they did. This was the most complete, team performance I've seen in a college lacrosse game in a long time. It was the epitome of an M.O. that the Bears follow called "Brown State." Brown State is gritty, edgy, tough... and "a little weird" to quote Coach Tiffany's post game speech. It's what connects the guys from the class of '73 to the players of 2009 and everyone inbetween.

So the HomeField player of the week award won't go to Jordan Burke, Matt Cassil or Andrew Feinberg. It goes to every one of the players on the 2009 Brown State squad who won a battle for the ages and their chance at a second Ivy title in a match against Princeton this Saturday.

GO BRUNO!

The 2009 Brown senior class.

Photos via BrownLacrosse.org Check it out for more game blogs and photos.

Disclaimer: Is this award biased? You betcha! Reece and Dan are 2005 Brown alums. But it's still well-deserved. Another Brown mantra? Expect nothing. Earn everything. Bears - you earned it!

Player-of-the-Week

By Patrick

How does a team with a 1-10 record - a team whose only win came against a team that currently holds a 1-11 record - manage to upset the #6 team in the country? Well, there are a lot of things that have to go right to make this happen, but when your freshman goalie steps up and essentially stonewalls your opponent, that's as good a place to start as any.

That is exactly what happened on Senior Day in West Hartford, CT, where the visiting sixth-ranked UMBC Retrievers out shot the Hartford Hawks 54-24. Unfazed by this onslaught, freshman goaltender Scott Bement turned away shot after shot, making 19 saves while only allowing 8 goals, en route to playing the finest game of his young career.

Bement's outstanding effort has earned him this week's HomeField/Overtime Media Player-of-the-Week award, but every member of the Hartford lacrosse program should be recognized for their perseverance. Despite enduring a tough season that has included four 1-goal losses and three 2-goal losses, these players and coaches refused to give up, and that determination was finally rewarded this past Saturday.

(Photograph courtesy of Steve McLaughlin)

Word of mouth coming back to me

By Reece

HomeField came back to me the other day!

While waiting for another game to finish, I got to know some of my new teammates on the New York Athletic Club lacrosse team. I started talking with Mike Ammann. We asked the usual questions as we sniffed each other out. "Where'd you play? Where are you from? What do you do for work?" For most guys, you can just fill in the blanks with the following answers.

I played for ___________ (ACC Team/Cornell/Princeton).

I'm from ___________ (Long Island / Baltimore).

I work for ___________ (major finance bank/hedge fund).

So I caught Mike's attention when I said that I was from Cape Cod, I played at Brown and most importantly, that I started a company that handles video for sports teams. He asked, "What's it called?"

"HomeField."

"Yeah, I thought so. I play with the NY Titans, too. We've been using it. It's great."

I was stoked! I had no idea Mike played with the Titans and it was great to run into one of our users (especially a pro). Sure, lacrosse is a tight network; nonetheless, I was psyched to have HomeField come back to me and I'm looking forward to the next time. Maybe it'll be that high school senior training at my gym, maybe it'll be a coach walking by our tailgate at the Final Four, and soon - it could be any super-fan following their team on HomeField.

Player-of-the-Week

By Patrick

This week the HomeField/Overtime Media Player-of-the-Week hails from the weekend's biggest upset. Heading down to Durham, NC with a number one ranking and a perfect 12-0 record, UVA looked like they couldn't lose. The Cavs had won three consecutive one goal games, including the seven overtime thriller against Maryland, but their luck along with their perfect record came to an end against eighth ranked Duke.

Leading the Blue Devils was senior attackman Ned Crotty, whose assist to Justin Turri helped Duke strike first. Crotty contributed back-to-back goals of his own at the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter which pushed his team's lead to 4-2 in a game the Blue Devils would never trail.

While Crotty helped set the tone and stake Duke to an early lead, his leadership and experience were never more evident than late in the third quarter. UVA was threatening to make a run as their own senior attackman, Danny Glading, put the team on his shoulders with two amazing unassisted tallies. Glading's teammate, Mike Thompson, followed suit with a goal of his own on a well-placed rip from up top, and suddenly the Cavaliers were back in the game, down only 9-6 with more than 20 minutes left to play. This is when a poised Crotty delivered a knockout punch, calmly notching two assists to spark a five-goal Duke run that Crotty would finish with his sixth and final assist of the day. That run pushed the Blue Devil lead to 14-6 in the fourth quarter and UVA never posed a serious threat the rest of the way. When the final whistle blew, Duke had a 15-10 victory and Crotty finished with career-highs in points and assists, finishing the day with eight points on 2 goals and 6 assists.

It's great to see a senior step up and lead his team in a game of this magnitude, and we offer our congratulations to Ned Crotty and the rest of the Blue Devils on a great win. Good luck to Duke as they finish the regular season against Army and St. John's, and prepare for the ACC tournament where they will be the second seed.

Player-of-the-Week

By Patrick

This weekend was filled with a number of high-profile match ups that lived up to their hype. Because there were so many nail-biting performances, it made our job of singling out one Player-of-the-Week very difficult. Fortunately, we here at Overtime Media pride ourselves on our adaptability, and we put that characteristic on display in choosing not one, but two players to share this week's award.

On Friday, Navy goalkeeper Tommy Phelan made an early push for the award - leading the Mids to an upset win while racking up an impressive 17 saves and an .81 save percentage against a potent Maryland offense.

On Saturday, Cornell was able to outlast the upstart Harvard Crimson thanks to offensive outbursts by Rob Pannell and Chris Finn, the all-around dominant play of Max Seibald, and some late-game heroics off the bench from goalkeeper Jake Myers; Hopkins handled Albany thanks to another high-scoring performance by one of our former weekly award winners, Chris Boland; and North Carolina pushed UVA to the limit despite losing senior goalkeeper Grant Zimmerman to an apparent knee injury midway through the second period.

While many performances earned consideration for our weekly award, it is a pair of teammates -freshmen no less - that share our this week's HomeField/Overtime Media Player-of-the-Week honors. Despite some offensive miscues, Princeton was able to handle the defending champion Syracuse Orangemen by a score of 12-8 at Giant's Stadium. Princeton was able to overcome 18 turnovers on offense as well as 5 failed clears thanks to a defense that held Syracuse's explosive offense to their lowest goal output of the season. The defense was led by Tyler Fiorito who was spectacular in goal, finishing with 15 saves and a stingy .652 save percentage, and defenseman Chad Wiedmaier who was instrumental in limiting Syracuse All-America attackman Kenny Nims to just 2 goals. At one point, Princeton's D managed to hold Syracuse scoreless for 14:58, a lengthy drought that extended from late in the third quarter until the final minutes of play.

Congratulations to Tyler, Chad, and the Princeton Tigers on an outstanding win. With all five remaining games against Ivy League foes, Princeton will need these two freshmen to continue playing beyond their years if they hope to reclaim the Ivy crown from last season's co-champions, Brown and Cornell.

(Photographs by Beverly Schaefer, courtesy of Princeton University)

Amie Street: Great Application, Great Service

By Reece

To download music, I use a service called Amie Street - a lot - and not just because the founders are fellow Brown University alums. For one, the music on Amie Street is fresher than anything on iTunes and they do a great job of recommending new music based on your preferences with occasional free downloads. It's also DRM free (and always has been), so once I purchase a song, I can play it anywhere. They also let you play your paid-for music, streaming from their site. Pretty cool.

The best part? It's a market. Every song/album starts out cheap or free and prices rise according to popularity - but never go above $.98. I think that's great, and it encourages users to seek out new music before it gets popular (and expensive). Last week, I bought the Harlem Shakes first release after I sampled it on Amie Street and I've been listening to it non-stop. My price? $4.72 (It's currently maxed out at $7. Still a steal for this album!).

Now Amie Street's sold me again with great customer service... well, not me, but my friend Kati and that's sold me in the process... I 'gifted' the Harlem Shakes album to Kati via Amie Street (another great feature) and she wrote to them merely to say:

"i think it is wonderful that you can send music to someone as a gift. that's all. good work."

Their response:

Thanks a lot for getting in touch and I'm glad you like the site. We always appreciate our users taking the time to write us, and its especially nice to have someone write in and highlight one of the features that we're fairly proud of ourselves.

I've passed your email along to the team, and I dropped a few extra RECs in your account as a small thanks. You can REC any song you've purchased and earn money for more music if the song you recommend goes up in price. Please let me know if there's anything I can help with or if you have any thoughts and suggested improvements for Amie Street.

Regards,

Ian Whalen
Amie Street Support
Twitter / Facebook

That's awesome customer service. Sure, it's easier to deal with the happy customers than it is to deal with the unhappy ones, but those happy customers are the ones who are going to recommend your product, who will test new features, who will be there through the successful launches and the probable pitfalls and it pays to keep them happy.

Nice work Amie Street. Harlem Shakes you rock.

You can listen to a couple of their songs on my tumblog, here.

Update:

me: http://goovertime.com/2009/04/amie-street-great-application-great.html

Sent at 12:46 PM on Thursday

kati: so funny. i am currently on amiestreet as we speak

procrastinating

And now she's rambling about all the other great features...

Update #2: Amie Street wrote me a thanks for this post and gave me a few RECs, too! Yeah!

HomeField. The word is spreading...

By Patrick

Some more love for HomeField from the people over at Inside Lacrosse:

http://blogs.insidelacrosse.com/2009/04/01/10961/

And if you haven't checked out Justin Redd's other posts you should. In his "Shoot the Scout" column, he does a great job of analyzing recent and upcoming games by identifying some of the things that coaches look for when they break down film. The column often provides a refreshing perspective on these games.