After four days of
practice we were able to get out on Youngman on Sunday and scrimmage the Union
Dutchmen. As some of you may recall,
Union is coming off the best season in the history of its program, winning 13
games and losing to Tufts in the 2nd round of NCAA's by a goal. While I didn't watch any film on them prior
to the scrimmage or talk with any coaches I knew they returned a stout defense
and their goalie is the preseason player of the year in Division 3 according to
Lacrosse Magazine. You get the picture,
this was going to be a good test for us and when you factor in that they have
fall ball and started on Feb 1st, we'd have our hands full.
The scrimmage ended up
being very competitive and was pretty evenly played all around. Plenty of penalties were assessed on both
teams and there were many early season mistakes made on our end but I was happy
with how we competed from start to finish.
Our ground ball play was ahead of where I thought it would be and
athletically I think we have some guys ready to go this year.
I won't go into much
detail on the scrimmage itself but will talk about a few performances worth
noting.
We had some big shoes to
fill this year in the cage with the departure of Ryan Deane but after a week of
practice I couldn't be more excited about what we have in Nate Gaudio. Nate was
every bit as good as Union's goalie on Sunday and his outlet passes are going
to lead to some easy goals for us this year in transition. I think Nate is going to surprise some
people this year and has an extremely bright future ahead of him.
Defensively we still have
a long way to go but had a few individuals that did some nice things the other
day. Johnny Duvnjak
is ready to go this year, he was flying around putting
the ball and plenty of opponents on their backs. A number of other guys played well but one to
keep an eye on is first-year Calvin Williams from Wayland, MA. Cal is 6'1 – 200 or so and runs like a deer, he's going to be a player for us down the road.
Another first-year to look
out for this year is Joel Blockowicz from Georgetown
Prep. Joel walked on to the football
team this fall and ended up starting at cornerback by the midway point of the
season. Even though he's already capable
of playing offense for us this year he'll most likely start out at defensive
midfield and will
be an immediate impact player, very impressed with him thus far.
Offensively we didn't
light up the scoreboard the other day but we've been impressed with the strides
our guys have made in the off season this year.
A number of sophomores have come back looking like completely different
players and hopefully that will translate in being able to help us on the field
this spring. One guy in particular that has really turned it on this year is a
young man that many of you know from his days on the sidelines in Vail and that
being Stephen Seymour. He had a nice cut
the other day in the scrimmage that led to a goal and has been making everyone
around him better in practice.
It's an exciting time of
year and I look forward to seeing what strides we're able to take this week
before our St. Lawrence scrimmage on Friday night. Before we get there we have one more practice
tomorrow and then we're spending a few days with a former Navy SEAL and his
team called "The Program".
We'll be doing some team building exercises with them on Thursday
evening/Friday morning on the field and in the pool in what they call Judgment
Day. Should be fun….
Best,
Dave