From the podcast: Mike Sciamanna of St. Anselm on the D-2 experience

Mike Sciamanna addresses his St. Anselm team in last year's NCAA tournament game against Seton Hill. (Ed Mailliard)

On this week’s episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing the Goal” podcast, hosts Kyle Devitte and Jack Piatelli sat down and chatted with St. Anselm head coach Mike Sciamanna.

In 2021, Sciamanna led the Hawks to their best season ever, going 13-2 and making it all the way to the quarterfinals of the Division 2 championship. They did so by combing a fast attacking offense with a stalwart defense. With the 2022 season on the horizon, Sciamanna has his team ready to try and repeat the feat.

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This podcast is sponsored by the University of Nebraska High School. For more information on UNHS, visit highschool.nebraska.edu/nelj.

Jack Piatelli: The game has changed. Clearing the ball and the shot clock means that riding is back in the game. Has your clearing philosophy changed as well as your X’s and O’s because of the shot clock?

Mike Sciamanna: Not a ton. I think, the rule before was 30 seconds to touch it in the box. But, the amount of time that you have the ball in your defensive end is fairly similar. The thing that we want to do with our clear is create transition out of it. It can happen in a settled clear; it doesn’t have to be that the goalie makes a save and we get it out quick to push transition. It can be a clear where we have a two-on-one and we have an attackman that has to stay over on the backside, and we get two guys over the midfield line and now we’re pushing that two-on-one opposite the box side.

Kyle Devitte: What has changed for you as a coach going from Endicott, which is D-3, to St. A’s, which is D2?

MS: Division 2 is a little different from Division 3. I enjoy it because we get a spend a lot more time with our guys in the fall, especially. We may practice 35 times this fall, which is great. So, the biggest thing is that you can get young guys in and you can get them in early. You can get them experience with multiple scrimmages in the fall. They know the systems by the time the spring comes around. So those guys are able to compete in those games cone late February or March. That’s something that we have been able to do for the last four (years) is have young guys make an impact right off the bat.

JP: Coach, explain to our listeners how the recruiting process works in Division 2, because it’s a little bit different with scholarship money and when you can actually start talking to players.

MS: So, Division 2 is a little bit different than D-1 or D-3. We can start talking to recruits, prospective student-athletes, in June going into their junior year. So, we could talk to 2023 recruits in June. Division 1 (coaches) can’t talk to them until Sept. 1. Once we can start talking to them we can make them a verbal offer and they can make a verbal commitment. So for us, the biggest thing is that we are going to get their transcripts to figure out where they are academically and that can give us an idea of where they are in terms of merit awards for them, and if they’re a good candidate for admission to our school. From there we can add athletic aid onto that.

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