From the podcast: Dan Arestia on lacrosse writing, PLL semis

On this week’s episode of the “Chasing The Goal” podcast, host Kyle Devitte, right, talks with fellow lacrosse writer Dan Arestia.

On this week’s episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, host Kyle Devitte talks with fellow lacrosse writer Dan Arestia.

Arestia started writing about lacrosse 10 years ago after a career in coaching and playing the game. He is a regular contribuitor to New England Lacrosse Journal and laxjournal.com, covering pros, colleges, and high school and preps in his home state of Connecticut.

He currently hosts the “Sticks In” podcast, which recently celebrated its 100th episode — a sit-down interview with PLL founder Paul Rabil.

In this podcast, Arestia explains how he got into writing about lacrosse and he breaks down the PLL semifinals that are set to take place this weekend.

Watch the full podcast below on YouTube. It’s also available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoy it, please leave a rating and a review. Watch more episodes on the Chasing the Goal podcast channel.

Kyle Devitte: I want to tell the story about how you and I got to work for USA Lacrosse doing Division 2 and Division 3 because that’s kind of been my beat for a while, but I alternated on D-2 and D-3 for a while. It always was important because that’s where I coached for all of my college lacrosse career until 2021. But you were kind of new to it and I remember when we both decided to do it (it was), “Why don’t we do it together?”

And our editor, Kenny DeJohn, asked, “Can you do that?” And I asked, “Can you make it happen?” And a lot of it was, I don’t know if I can do this by myself to the extent that it’s good enough, but you and I combined together I think we can make it work.

Dan Arestia: I remember getting the call from Kenny where he asked, “We’re looking to kind of up the coverage of D-2 and D-3. We’re looking to do it with some guys who know the sport, know the landscape, do all that stuff well.” At that point, I had been voting in the D-1 polls, so I at least had given him the impression that I knew what I was talking about.

So when he asked me, “Do you want to do D-2, D-3? Do you want to try and do that for us? A weekly ranking? We’ll do player rewards. We’ll do some other stuff in there.” I was very interested, but I told him that my reservation was the D-2 world. 

Those worlds are enormous. There’s, what, 80 D-1 teams. There are 10,000 D-2 teams and D-3 teams. To me, the standard that I try and hold is that if you’re going to be covering D-2, then you need to cover it all; you need to at least have your thumb on kind of all of it.

Kyle Devitte: If anybody knows where everyone’s supposed to be on the field, it’s (New York Atlas head coach) Mike Pressler (Wilton, Conn.). Mike Pressler knows where I should be sitting to cover the game. He knows where everyone’s supposed to be.

It’s him imposing whatever authority he can put on a team, but also letting them be that team. And that’s why he’s been a good pro coach, because when he came in, he had a lot of strife — they have this locker room that’s literally the meme of the dog sitting in the fire sipping coffee saying it’s fine And somehow in the last couple of years, Pressler has transformed that. He is obviously the Coach of the Year, right? They haven’t announced the awards, but he’s got to get that. 

Dan Arestia:  I don’t think it’s that easy to pick. I talked about a little bit on my pod, but the Coach of the Year nominees are (Jim) Stagnitta (of the Maryland Whipsnakes), Pressler and (Tim) Soudan (of the Denver Outlaws). I don’t think it’s obviously any one of those guys.

I know, historically, in sports and pro sports in general, coaching usually goes to the guy who takes a team with a really bad record and turns it into a really good record, regardless of how it happens. That’s the guy who wins Coach of the Year, which obviously would not be Stags, but there’s a very good case for Stags to be Coach of the Year.

He is in the midst of overseeing this team between eras, right? No more Mike Ehrhart, no more Tyler Warner and Kyle Bernlohr has become your backup. Matt Rambo is aging; Jake Bernhardt is aging. These guys are all approaching the end and it’s all being handed over to TJ Malone and Adam Poitras.

@TheKyleDevitte
[email protected]

More Episodes