Matt Lalli

Matt Lalli (March 27, 1986) is an American professional lacrosse player for the Boston Cannons of Major League Lacrosse.

Lalli attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey, where he lettered in lacrosse, hockey, football and soccer. He scored 51 goals and 30 assists as a senior, and was named a high school All American and Player of the Year by the Princeton Packet and the Trentonian.^[1]

Lalli played lacrosse at Colgate University, where he scored 21 goals and 23 assists as a freshman to lead the team in scoring, and followed that with 26 goals and 18 assists as a sophomore. He scored 22 goals and 27 assists as a junior, the second-highest point total in the Patriot League. As a senior he scored 20 goals and 27 assists, leading to his selection as a 3rd team All American and his participation in the North - South All Star Game.^[1] Lalli led Colgate to its first-ever share of the Patriot League title in the 2006 season, and helped the team to a berth in the NCAA tournament.^[2]

He was selected in the 2nd Round of the 2008 Major League Lacrosse Draft as the 16th pick overall by the Dragons. He played in eight games for San Francisco, scoring 10 goals and five assists, including five goals scored in a June 14, 2008 game against the Denver Outlaws.^[1]

In his first Next level Lacrosse summer league game on June 15, 2009, at the Stevens Institute of Technology site, Matt was held to just 1 point (0 g, 1 a), and assist, but did tally two groundballs and maintained a tremendous field presence. Matt's team, Team Turbo, did take a commanding victory in the game(10–4), regardless of his lackluster play. In his second regular season games against the Orcas on June 22nd, 2009, Matt began to step his play up and tallied 5 total points (4 g, 1 a), and helped set the pace of the game with his hard work riding the Defense all night long.

After the first two games on Team Turbo, Chris Ford had this to say: "I would really like to get me a piece of that." Cousins, Chris and Brian Lalli, commented as well. "Our Dad always wished we had been as good as him."

Matt finished the 2009 Next Level Lacrosse summer league strong by quarterbacking the offense to its second overall league championship, although his performance in the championship game was not good enough to earn him MVP honors.

Within the next week, Matt led his club team, Power-Tek Lacrosse, to the #1 seed in the War at the Shore Lacrosse Tournament in Brick, NJ, heading into the Championship Sunday, which was eventually rained out. Determined to continue his governing play, Matt brought his heavy-underdog club team to the finals of the Lake Placid Lacrosse Tournament the very next weekend, where they would eventually lose to the former collegiate All-American stacked Graph-Tex team-where the highlights can be found on insidelacrosse.tv.

A begrudged Matt Lalli spent the entire winter off-season dedicated to come back bigger, faster, stronger for the 2010 summer season, beginning with the Next Level Lacrosse Summer League 2010. Matt brought more of his former Colgate cronies to the roster and shepherded the squad to an 11–1 record and repeat championships, although for the second time in as many years, he was not awarded MVP honors. This made the fire in his belly burn stronger- the following weekend at the 2010 War at the Shore Tournament in Brick, NJ, Matthew, yet again, led the Power-Tek squad to a 3–0 on the first day at the tournament, setting up a #1 seed for championship Sunday. While many argued it was the strong play of the team's defense that truly carried the team, only allowing 8 goals in the first 3 games, and 23 goals in 7 games, all the players and spectators knew deep down it was Matt's abilities on the field that led to the team's birth in the Championship game against Mesa Fresh, where they would eventually fall short and lost the game by 4 goals.

Undeterred, Matt came back strong the following weekend with Power-Tek at the 2010 Lake Placid Lacrosse Tournament, where the team eventually came to a repeat championship match against an even stronger Graph-Tex team from the previous year. Although the squad had the lead late in the 3rd quarter. The 4 Tewaarten Trophy winners, and 18 past and present collegiate All Americans of the Graph-Tex Squad was too much for Power-Tek and eventually beat P-Tek 8–6, where Matt's cousin, Chris Lalli, was awarded the Sportsmanship award for his lack of harassment of the referees for the first time in his career. For this award, Chris was awarded a brand new Brine Voyce strung lacrosse head with Brine F15 shaft, which should suit him well seeing he is a goalie.

References