via Inside Lacrosse   Excerpt: Thursday is gameday. I woke up at 4:19 a.m. fully refreshed, but I decided to try to fall back asleep for an hour or two. Re-woke at 10:29 a.m. just in time to grab breakfast at the buffet. Back in my room, I work on my TV boards, complete with skeleton bios for 90 minutes before a workout. Our hotel sits 500 feet from the beach; there are cliffs and a perfect stair climb for intervals. Exertion at noon to 1 p.m. in the blazing sun and heat will give me a better idea of what these athletes are dealing with. The routine is capped off with squats, ab work, leg extensions and some exercises I stole from my daughters gymnastics training. The Iroquois team arrives at our hotel after a trip that was delayed a few days and three hours. Getting to the hotel at 1 p.m. with a game at 8:30 p.m. on the same night isn’t ideal. But if anybody is tough enough to overcome this ordeal, it’s the Nationals. I spoke with Jeremy Thompson, the oldest of the Thompson five who are here. I ate lunch with Anish and the Iroquois coaching staff of Mark Burnham, Lars Tiffany (Virginiia) and Scott Marr (Albany). We discuss dozens of topics. It’s great to see the Nationals in Netanya, they are an integral part of this event, linking the past with the future. They also have players who I’d pay to watch play, like Lyle Thompson, Tehoka Nanticoke, Randy Staats and Kyle Jackson. This rendition is a tad bit younger than some teams in the past with players like Chase Scanlan (Loyola, 2022), Tyson Bomberry (Syracuse, 2019), Jake Fox (Hopkins, 2019), Ron John (Albany, 2020) and Austin Staats of OCC. Read the rest HERE