September 17, 2011
Cannons' Daye, Rabil collect MLL's top hardware
by Staff Report/
With the best record in Major League Lacrosse during the 2011 regular season, it’s no surprise that members of the Boston Cannons picked up some of the league’s top hardware heading into the championship weekend in late August.
Cannons coach Billy Daye was selected by his peers and the league’s general managers as the 2011 Brine MLL Coach of the Year. In his sixth season as the Cannons’ head coach, Daye led Boston to the league’s best regular-season record for the second consecutive season, with a 9-3 record heading into the playoffs. The nine wins represented the most by a Cannons team during the past six years.
Daye, who also was a Cannons goaltender and then an assistant coach before taking the helm in 2006, has a career regular-season coaching record of 43-29 (.597) and has led the Cannons to four winning seasons in six years.
Cannons star midfielder Paul Rabil was named the Warrior MLL Offensive Player of the Year. It was the second time in three years that Rabil earned the honor, which is based on voting by the league’s head coaches and general managers. Rabil’s award marked the third consecutive season that the Cannons have had the league’s midfielder of the year, with Matt Poskay earning the trophy in 2010 and Rabil grabbing the honor in 2009.
“We’ve done some great things (this season), and it trickles down from the top, obviously, with (Daye) winning Coach of the Year,” Rabil said when the award was announced. “It’s allowed my job to be a lot easier.”
The Cannons’ leading scorer, Rabil scored 28 goals in 11 regular-season games, including four two-point goals. He took a team-high 127 shots and was named the MLL Offensive Player of the Week twice during the regular season.
In 42 career regular-season games, Rabil has scored 106 goals, including 21 two-point markers, with 46 assists.
Four members of the Cannons — Rabil, faceoff specialist Chris Eck and defensemen Mitch Belisle and Kyle Sweeney — were named to the 2011 All-MLL team. It was Rabil’s third consecutive All-MLL honor, while Sweeney earned notice for the fourth time in the past five years and Belisle and Eck were first-time all-stars.
This article originally appeared in the September-October 2011 issue of New England Lacrosse Journal.
