Takeaway Tuesday – Scrimmages: BU vs. Michigan & Fairfield vs. BU

This past Saturday I attended the scrimmages over at Fairfield University featuring Fairfield, Michigan, and Boston University. Coming back from NYC I wasn’t able to catch the first game between Fairfield and Michigan, but I was able to watch the others and here’s what I saw:

BU vs. Michigan: 

Showed up just at the start of the second half bc I had to grab some food (s/o to Country Cow in Fairfield). In this half BU torched Michigan. The Terriers were faster, more physical and overall had greater attention to detail. To be fair, it seemed evident that as the half progressed, both teams were emptying their benches, but still it goes to show BU is deep and despite losing a coveted senior class (first recruiting class for BU), the Terriers are all in. Heck the Terriers were even dominating the sideline competition. Their bench was ecstatic. Notable players from this game for BU were Brendan (Butters) Homire, Mikey Laviano and Grant Gregory. Homire’s been a staple on the Terrier’s top midfield line since he stepped on campus (2nd Team All-Patriot League in 2017) and Laviano is looking to break out after being named one of the team captains this season as a junior. For Michigan I was impressed with senior midfielder Sean McCanna. Whenever he was on the field it seemed the offense was operating through him. He reminded me of former Wolverine Ian King, in terms of offensive presence and confidence carrying with pressure. Sean is coming off a monster junior campaign where he put up 47 points.

Fairfield vs. BU:

So in total my coverage is a tale of two halves as I only stuck around for the first one in this game. It was cold and windy… Nonetheless in this scrimmage both squads were playing their starters full time. For Fairfield, it’s the same story since he stepped on campus, everything runs through junior attackman Colin Burke. Burke braced the cover of IL Magazine last spring and maybe he got a bit of the Madden Curse? Regardless, Burke can ball and there’s no question about his abilities this spring. He’s a facilitator at X and looks one step ahead of his peers at times. He was wearing #21 out there which was surprising, maybe tryna catch BU off guard.

Fairfield got out to a 6-3 lead with a minute to go in the half and then BU’s Freshman Fogo Sean Christman took over. Christman has big shoes to fill (literally wearing #31 as well) after the graduation of Sam Talkow but Sean won two faceoffs and got the ball down to the offense where veteran attackman Jack Wilson buried two shots to get the “dogs” within one. 15 seconds left at this point and BU gets the ball back in a scramble and the crowd got to catch a glimpse of what Freshman mid/attack Chris Gray can to. Gray is by far the most coveted commit to ever come to BU and we saw why. Gray got the ball with 7 seconds left after a broken play. He split his defender out of his shoes down the right alley and stuck one bottom left on a step down. 6-6 buzzer beater. All half I was watching with my brother saying look out for #4 in red. We saw why. I’m amped to see what he’ll do over these next four years. Peep his senior year highlights from his days at Shoreham-Wading River out deep on Long Island.