Each week, we will look back at the games that were to see which players had the largest individual performances. I say largest because the contributions that we can measure (from play by play) tend to be things that are easy to count. This includes, goals, shots, assists, turnovers, penalties, etc. We can’t measure a defender who shuts down an opposing player so completely that she doesn’t even touch the ball. Still, it is interesting to be able to identify the players that really filled it up each weekend and give them a shout out here.
For a bit of background, in order to rank single game performances, we needed a way to condense box score stats to a single number for each player. In order to do this, we relied on our expected goal values methodology, which assigns a goal value to each type of play depending on how often it leads to a goal in the next 60 seconds. By adding up all the expected goals added for each player, we can get to that single number and these rankings.
We have also tagged each performance with the opponent’s ELO rating. The higher the number, the stronger the opponent. This should help to give some context for each performance. Did the player feast on the dregs of D1 or did they put up these numbers against a quality opponent?
Click on any player’s name or the PRO logo () and you’ll head straight to the detailed breakdown on their LacrosseReference PRO page. As opposed to last year, all players appearing in the weekly rundown are unlocked and the information on their page is available to all readers.
Emma Vinall’s 2022 year gives us an interesting test case for the various metrics and how we should think about player performance.
First and foremost, she’s playing exactly as well as she did in 2021. Her uaEGA player efficiency rating is 75, same as it was last year. But her goals/game is down. Her assists/game is down. Her EGA/game is down. What gives?
The key stat here is that her play share is also down 13.9% this year vs 17.0% last year. Simply put, other players are picking up the slack. And the end result has been a good one for American. Their offensive efficiency is up from 29.2% last year to 30.8% this year.
Yes, Vinall’s numbers are down from last year but paradoxically, that’s been a good thing for the team.
Not often you see a double digit number in the goals or assists column. But Gabby Fornia accomplished that feat against Cincinnati en route to a career high day all around. It should be said though that this is not out of character.
Across her three seasons with Vanderbilt, her assist rate (on a 1-100 scale) has never been below 95.
I don’t think anyone has played more of a role in filling the shoes left by Alyssa Parrella than Taylor Mennella. Her play share has jumped from 2.0% a year ago to 10.8% this year.
She’s taken 18.6% of the team’s shots and had 22.5% of their assists. A year ago, those numbers were 2.4% and 5.6% respectively. And she’s managed the new workload without sacrificing the efficiency that she showed a year ago. As of today, she’s in the 85th percentile nationally.
The Dukes got the win in this one, but it was still an impressive showing from Karson Harris. The 3.06 uaEGA mark was her third highest efficiency rating of the year.
The challenge for the Dragons is that they won just 32% of the draws and faced a 7 possession disadvantage. JMU’s per-possession efficiency was better regardless, so that wasn’t the difference in the game, but having no margin for error can’t help.
After 4 straight games with a 10+ EGA mark, you could say that Hormes has cooled off a bit over her last two…
…And she’s still #6 this week. But as we mentioned above, raw totals are deceiving. Despite the lower overall EGA, her game against GWU was her most efficient game of the season.
On the surface, the Eagles’ past two games have been very similar. Tight games, won in the end by Manhattan. One a 2-goal loss and the other by a single point.
But if you are Lois Garlow, they could not have been more different. In the first game, she took one shot and have two turnovers. Not that memorable. On Saturday, she took 10 shots (career high), scored 6 goals (career high) and added 2 assists (career high).
This was the type of game that you want to have heading into the rigors of the Patriot League tournament. Navy hit their highest efficiency mark of the season, in part thanks to their lowest turnover rate of the year.
That’s been one of the things that really stands out in Eby’s career progression. She’s turned a ball security weakness into a strength and that’s helped get her up to the 85th percentile for individual efficiency.
23 goals will often get you 2 spots on the weekly EGA list. And the second one comes courtesy of Roelofs’ 2nd highest efficiency game of the year.
Her ’22 play share is almost exactly the same as it was last season, but she’s taking 6.4 shots per game, compared to 3.6 last year. If her usage rate is the same, but she’s taking that many more shots, what gives? Turns out that Navy is playing at a much faster pace this year. In 2021, they ranked 68th in pace; this year, they are 31st. Faster pacing means more possessions and more shots for everyone.
The day will be remembered as the first post-season victory for Pitt. But Nicole Perroni will remember it as a nice capstone to her 3rd season with the Cards.
Career highs in points, EGA, assists and goals. Not the way they wanted their season to end, but this is the type of game that can be a springboard for a player heading into next season.
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) and you’ll head straight to the detailed breakdown on their LacrosseReference PRO page. As opposed to last year, all players appearing in the weekly rundown are unlocked and the information on their page is available to all readers.
