Grossman: A bear of an attackman

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Grossman: A bear of an attackman

Princeton-bound senior scores three times for streaking Landon lacrosse

by Dan Greenberg | Staff Writer

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Landon senior Michael Grossman doesn’t play lacrosse conventionally. He has all the skills of an elite-level attackman, which he’ll put on display at Princeton (N.J.) University for the next four years. But while scoring in the sport usually necessitates avoiding defenders, Grossman goes through them.

The Bears’ 7-2 home victory over Bullis Friday, their 10th in a row, was actually much closer than it looked. The teams were evenly matched, with one exception: The Bulldogs (10-5) had no answer for Landon’s rough-and-tumble front-liner. Time and again, Grossman scooped ground balls with multiple defenders hitting him, slashing him, doing whatever they possibly could to dislodge the ball from him. And time after time, he came out of the pack with the ball on his stick, creating chances from the depths of chaos.

‘‘He’s a lion,” said Landon head coach Rob Bordley. ‘‘We’re talking about a three-year starter, all-league as a sophomore, all-league linebacker on the football team. He’s completely oblivious to what happens to his body. He gets his goals the old-fashioned way, with ground balls and being an unbelievable rider. I think we feed off him.”

With his football background, it’s not surprising that Grossman has a high tolerance for contact. Yet the way he’s able to handle the ball in traffic is truly unique.

His three goals and one assist accounted for all four Landon (12-3) goals in the second quarter, each of which exhibited his special talent. With just over seven minutes to go in the first half and the score tied at one, Grossman scooped a ground ball and bounced off four Bullis defenders before finding junior Andrew Nagle wide open in front of net for the tally.

After that, he decided to do it all by himself. First, he rolled around the net, lost the ball on a check only to regain it in the midst of heavy defense, and plowed his way in for the point-blank goal. With 1:07 remaining in the half, he picked off a pass deep in Bullis territory, staved off another hit, and beat goalkeeper Stephen Burke for a 4-1 lead. Forty-six seconds later, after Bulldog midfielder Brian Will had cut the lead to two, he circled around the left side of the goal and unleashed a perfectly placed bullet from 10 feet.

‘‘I definitely use my size when I can, definitely on ground balls,” said Grossman.

Bullis head coach Mike DelGrande called Grossman’s final goal ‘‘the turning point.” The Bulldogs wouldn’t score again, despite amassing numerous chances against Landon goalkeeper C.T. Fisher.

Bullis got its own great goalkeeping performance from the Johns Hopkins-bound Burke, who registered 17 saves for the game, several of the spectacular variety. But its problems came on the offensive end.

‘‘I mean, against a team like this, when you’re given an opportunity, you’re five to six feet out in front of the crease, you’ve got to be able to finish them,” DelGrande said. ‘‘We knew that we matched up well against them, but we’re just not a good finishing team right now.”

Meanwhile, the Bears are rolling. With 10 wins a row, they faced Gonzaga Monday and will take on arch-rival Georgetown Prep this Friday. If the Bears have an advantage in that dogfight, it’s because their star attackman is always down for a scrap.

‘‘Ground balls win games,” said Grossman. ‘‘You can’t win if you can’t fight for them. Ground balls will win the game against Prep.”