It took us a half to get
off the bus against the Larries yesterday but once we
did, we cruised to an 11-4 win up in Canton.
Once again we had pretty balanced scoring on offense and our defense did
a terrific job. We held St. Lawrence
scoreless from the end of the first quarter until they scored their 3rd goal
with less than 4 minutes to play in the game.
St. Lawrence came out of
the gates with a ton of energy and created some nice opportunities in
transition in the first half of play.
While our guys were settling into the game we also created some good
looks but had a hard time solving their senior goalie. He made some routine
saves when we didn't put the ball to good spots but also made some spectacular
saves in tight, he finished the first half with 10 saves. Throughout the game we took advantage of some
juicy rebounds, the first of which came with 6 seconds to go in the half. Mike
"Gio" Giordano was able to get to the
doorstep only to once again be denied, fortunately the rebound ended up in Joel
Blockowicz' stick and he was able to tie the score up
at 2 as we went back inside for halftime to warm up.
The goal that got us
rolling in the third quarter also came off of a rebound that Stew Kerr scooped
up and buried to give us a 3-2 lead.
From there we would make it 9-2 before St. Lawrence was able to get back
on the board. A nice development this year has been
the work of our man-up unit. After
starting the year 0-2 up at Bates, we've gone 5-7, 4-5, and ended up 2-4
yesterday. Stew's rebound goal helped
our man-up percentage and Sean Carroll would later add another tally from his
spot up top.
We've made some
significant progress defensively in the last seven days since the Springfield
game. Our close defense of seniors Billy
Chapman, Zach Driscoll, and John Duvnjak are all
playing lights out right now as is Nate Gaudio in the goal. Our short stick defensive middies are doing a
better job of executing their role in our scheme and we're getting some
excellent play out of our lsm's Darric
White and freshman Steve Brown (St. Sebastian's). Darric was awarded
the game ball yesterday as he came up with some tough GB's on the wing, took a
few face offs, and had a nice assist to Mike Ford in the 4th quarter.
After starting off the
year with three of our first four games on the road, we're ready for the
upcoming home stretch over the next couple of weeks. Wesleyan will be in town on Saturday at 1pm,
I haven't been able to watch much film of them yet but they've been playing
zone again this year and will be up for their shot against the Panthers this
weekend. We're now getting into the
stretch of our NESCAC schedule that gave us some trouble last year and it all started
down in Middletown. What a great
opportunity for our team, hopefully we'll be ready to take advantage of it on
Saturday.