January 26th, 2008: Lehigh at Lafayette

Now this is what a rivalry game's about.


The Grand Tour continued on Saturday, as we ventured to our third state in this quest, crossing the Delaware for one of the oldest rivalries in college sports: Lehigh-Lafayette. For once, we had excellent directions, as Lafayette's website was very useful in providing address information and specifics about the arena's location on campus.

Kirby Sports Arena sits along College Hill, a simple building with a modern, elegant interior that celebrates both Lafayette's varsity sports and its intramurals; as Glenn pointed out, you might be at an academically inclined school if one of your intramurals is backgammon. Their gym, much like Princeton's, is set up for indoor track, but unlike at Jadwin, the extra space is muffled so that noise doesn't escape out of the playing area, instead rising to the rafters and coming back down, much like the RAC. They also take advantage of the extra space by having their concession stand between two sets of screens. Signs your game might be held in Pennsylvania: the concessions include funnel cake. In retrospect, we should have taken advantage of the Herr's chips.

The beauty of a rivalry that is pretty much among neighbors is that the traveling team can enjoy some of the advantages of home, and Lehigh played that to the hilt. Despite wearing their, frankly, unattractive and non-menacing road brown and white, they enjoyed the support of a vocal cheering section… and their cheerleaders… and their band, who did a wicked version of "Carry On Wayward Son". For a Patriot League team, they brought a lot of size and used it well. Haly Crites, Melissa Rich, and Courtney Dentler all did incredible work protecting the paint against Lafayette- at least in the first half, and through much of the second. Rich, along with guards Erica Prosser and Tricia Smith, showed a knack for getting to the line, though not always converting. I loved the defensive work of Sullivan on the perimeter, and the outside shooting of Alex Ross was unreal. She showed damn near NBA range, and she's only a sophomore. There's a reason Lehigh's making noise this season, and why they'll probably win the Patriot despite losing this very important conference game. They've got a lot of grit and a good mix of inside and outside games.

Side note of interest: there's kin of Wally Szczerbiak on the Lehigh roster, sophomore forward Wendy Szczerbiak. Either she was the tall, slim, brunette in street clothes with the injured knee… or she was the very large, very blonde forward in the appropriate jersey. I was pretty convinced that the jersey was accurate at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I think that there was absolutely no family resemblance between Wally and #10, whereas the young lady in street clothes bore a slight resemblance to him. 'cuz otherwise, someone got switched at birth, no lie.

On to the Leopards- who get credit for at least having a halfway unique name instead of being one of many Hawks or Bulldogs or Tigers. Some interesting names on that team; Elizabeth Virgin is definitely on the All-WTF Name Team, and the mythology geek in me wonders if she has a sister named Athena. They also have a Lauren Jackson, which is just disconcerting. I mean, I know they're both common names, but that doesn't keep it from being disconcerting. Lafayette's lineup was much more traditionally sized in terms of mid-majors, with twos playing the three, and threes playing the four and even the five. Lafayette's scorecard came with a handy stat breakdown, so I knew to watch senior Vanessa Van De Venter and freshman LaKeisha Wright (who, with one of the injury to one of Lafayette's other guards, had the dubious distinction of being "the black player") as the scoring stars, as both of them were putting up impressive shooting percentages, especially for perimeter players. I found myself liking Van De Venter's stroke, but not so much her hands- her fumbles almost cost Lafayette the game in the late stages, both in the giving and the receiving. Wright stepped her game up in the second half, showing a pretty impressive array of moves getting to the rack. But right around the third possession, the Leopard I found myself watching most intently was ballhawking guard Jessica Spicer, who played dogged defense and hit shots late in the game- a three to swing the momentum back in Lafayette's favor and a layup that helped put it out of reach. Clutch was also Emily Garner, who stepped up big off the bench and had the defining block that put the game in Lafayette's control- and since they weren't getting the production they ought to have been out of the scoreless Cristin Zavocki, they needed her to score.

The crowd was really into it, and I think the presence of the Lehigh fans really helped that- it wasn't a call and response, per se, but the presence of loud, vocal Lehigh fans helped spur the Lafayette fans on to back their team. In short, it was everything a rivalry game could hope for: tightly but fairly contested, loud and passionate fans for both sides, and a satisfying win for the home team.

The only thing better than a tightly, fiercely played rivalry game? A tightly, fiercely played rivalry game with a post-game autograph session. For the sake of completeness, I was disappointed that Van De Venter and Wright had to go handle media stuff in the midst of the session. A very charming bunch of young ladies who seemed genuinely pleased at the size of the crowd- and of course, the win over Lehigh. And I did promise I wouldn't tell, but somehow I doubt there are any Leopards reading these notes: senior forward Val Gomez, near the end of the autograph line, had clearly gotten bored at one point as traffic jammed up near the front, because she had doodled glasses and a Harry Potter scar on a couple of her teammates' images on a spare poster. "I guess I should turn that over," she said when I laughed.

This is what our Grand Tour is about- seeing games we would never have otherwise dreamed of seeing, being in the arena for rivalry games like this, having some of the best seats in the house for everything a rivalry game should be, surrounded by passionate fans and passionate players. This may well be the best game I've seen all season, and I'd like to thank the ladies of the Patriot League for providing it.