David Tamberrino wasn’t having his best performance Saturday, losing eight of 14 face-offs through the third quarter of the Terrapin men’s lacrosse game against North Carolina.
He relentlessly battled Tar Heel face-off specialist Shane Walterhoefer, getting his No. 20 jersey soaked and muddy in the middle of the field as he usually does.
And before the fourth quarter began, the referees made Tamberrino’s day an especially aggravating one. They picked his for a random stick check.
Tamberrino stood with his hands on his hips staring at the officials as they inspected the stick. They ruled the pocket was illegal and gave him a one-minute penalty.
Two days after the penalty, Tamberrino sat in the hallway of the Varsity Team House and looked around for 15 seconds collecting his thoughts about the situation.
“My stick’s not illegal,” he said authoritatively, before explaining how the strings got caught up in the pocket.
Although the ruling was the first illegal stick call against the Terps this season, the team has been prominently involved in the increase of the stick checks in the league.
Chuck Winters, the NCAA lacrosse rules editor, said sticks are the biggest equipment issue facing the game. Winters said the committee has told officials to look more at long pole defenders along with attackers and midfielders because of suspicion that those pockets can be illegal, too. He said the committee wants to make sure sticks have more distinct measurements with regard to depth and added that the stringing of sticks is another problem.
The Terps’ stick problems began during last year’s NCAA tournament in the waning minutes of the Terps’ quarterfinal game against Georgetown. Senior midfielder Bill McGlone scored with a little more than one minute 30 seconds left to put the Terps up 9-7, all but sealing a Terp victory.
Hoya coach Dave Urick requested a check on McGlone’s stick, something considered by many around the sport to be an underhanded way of questioning an opponent’s ability.
But this time, Urick looked like a genius. The referees gave McGlone a one-minute penalty for too deep of a pocket, negating the goal and giving Georgetown new life.
The Hoyas wasted no time marching down the field, tying the game and sending it to overtime.
“When it happened, it was devastating. It was heartbreaking,” McGlone said. “I basically felt like I cost my team the season.”
McGlone got a reprieve from those emotions when midfielder Andrew Schwartzman scored to put the Terps into the semifinals. Still, he and his illegal stick were featured on SportsCenter, paired with footage of Hall of Fame baseball player George Brett and his illegal pine tar bat.
McGlone said his stick broke the week before that game and he was using a stick a teammate loaned him. He said he knew nothing about stringing sticks and couldn’t even know what was wrong.
But SportsCenter’s coverage of the incident was just the beginning of the fallout from a one-minute penalty.
“I didn’t think it would have been that big of a deal, but apparently it was, because I got a lot of attention from it,” McGlone said.
Since then, coaches have been more vigilant in requesting stick checks along with the random stick checks that officials perform at the end of the first and third quarters.
“Refs are looking more for those illegal sticks now or certain players that might be more vulnerable to having those types of sticks,” McGlone said.
Terp senior attackman Joe Walters found himself at the center of the stick controversy March 8 when Duke coach Mike Pressler challenged the legality of Walters’ stick. The attackman had woven through a barrage of checks and held onto the ball, much to the surprise of Duke players and coaches. Illegal sticks often have deeper pockets that protect the ball from being dislodged and they also help shooters’ accuracy.
Referees test a stick by turning it over to see if the ball falls to the ground as it should.
If the ball gets stuck in the side of the strings, the pocket is illegal. Also, the 2006 NCAA Lacrosse Rules state that a pocket is too deep if an official “can see daylight between the top of the ball and the bottom edge of the side wall” of the stick.
Neither of those things happened and Walters’ stick was ruled legal. Two minutes later, he tied the game at seven and the Terps went on to win in overtime.
Walters, who has often been targeted by opposing coaches because of his scoring prowess, said all his sticks are legal and the challenges don’t bother him, but they are disrespectful to a player who’s scored 18 goals this season.
“It’s just funny that they think I gain an advantage by doing that. It’s more embarrassing for them,” Walters said. “But when they check it and it comes back legal, it just shows that I’m legit.”
Terp coach Dave Cottle has asked the referees to check an opponent for an illegal stick only once in his 24-year coaching career. It came against Terp rival Johns Hopkins in 2004 and he guessed right.
Cottle said higher stakes in college lacrosse is the reason for the increased stick checks and he thinks coaches requesting sticks is alright when it’s relevant to the game.
“If a kid is gaining an advantage by breaking the rules, I have no problem with [stick checking],” Cottle said.
Tamberrino, on the other hand, took serious exception. He was “pretty perturbed” about the ruling.
“I don’t knowingly cheat. I don’t make illegal sticks. I don’t use illegal sticks,” he said.
Walters said it’s a player’s responsibility to make sure his equipment is up to code. But if a player doesn’t accept that responsibility, referees increasingly aren’t afraid to enforce the laws.
Contact reporter Stephen Whyno at whynodbk@gmail.com.
