Quick update here as we
get ready for the Mules to come to town tomorrow for a BIG NESCAC game.
We picked up another
important league win on Wednesday against the Continentals in what turned out
to be a very competitive game. Midweek
home games continue to be the most difficult to prepare for mentally as the
players are running right over to the locker room from class, having said that,
our guys showed up ready to play on Wednesday.
We took a 6-2 lead into halftime and finished the game strong with a 5-0
run to start the 4th quarter, however, we did play the 3rd quarter as well
where Hamilton fought back and made it a 6-5 game at one point. Not only did they bring it to within a goal
but had a few very good looks on cage which would have tied it up if not for
the stellar and timely play of Will Ernst.
We had a solid offensive
day with balanced scoring and first-year Henry Riehl
leading us with 4 points (3g,1a) in his first career
start at attack. We're very pleased with
how Henry is playing and has made a seamless transition to attack over the past
week or so.
As I mentioned yesterday,
the game ball went to sophomore Cedric Rhodes (1g, 1a) who earned his first
playing time of the season against Hamilton and took advantage of the
opportunity. Cedric has improved his
game significantly from a year ago and is one of a number of guys on our roster
that has been playing very well in practice but hasn't been able to crack the
lineup until now. Thanks to his
preparation and positive attitude this year, he was ready when his number was
called and made the most of it! What a great lesson for the other guys on the
team and a credit to Cedric for all of the hard work he's put into his game
this year.
The most memorable moment
of the day belonged to the Weissmann family when both
Gabe and Noah were inserted into the game in opposing goals at the exact same
time coming out of a timeout with 3 minutes left to play.
Fortunately our announcer,
Matt Jennings, was all over it and announced both goalies entering the game
which made the moment all the more special.
Gabe stopped the first shot that came his way
and our sideline went bananas for him, he's a fantastic teammate and makes our
team better every single day. He's one
of our small group of seniors this year that I will continue to rave about as
long as we're able to keep this season going!
Finally, if I may, go back
to a moment that came during our spring break that I should have mentioned in
my spring break recap. It occurred during our team dinner the night before the
RIT game at Sammy's Trattoria in Baltimore where we had a superb Italian
meal. One of the best I've had in all of
my time in our program. During dinner it
dawned on the coaching staff that Coach Ritter's birthday typically falls
during spring break. We quickly reached out to the Ritter girls to confirm the
date and sure enough it was that day.
Once we alerted the seniors of what a special occasion it was, they took
it from there. As the wait staff brought
out some cake for Coach Rit, Mike Ford gave a
heartfelt toast to Coach Ritter (as only the Ford's
can do) and then led the team in singing Happy Birthday to Rit
who was thrilled to have the entire restaurant focused on him! Great way to end the evening and one of many
memorable moments on our spring trip this year.
Time to get back to Colby
film. They take a ton of shots and have
some nice pieces on offense. While temps
will be in the mid 60's today for practice, the forecast is for snow tomorrow
AM and in the 30's for game time. We're
hoping to get the game in at 1pm on Youngman but there's a chance we'll have to
bump it back to 2pm either on Youngman or on Kohn field. If you have some time tomorrow, this one will
be worth the watch.
I probably should have
mentioned this earlier but we had our best practice since 2013 yesterday out on
Youngman and maybe dating back longer than that. Every once in a while we have a practice where
the team plays at another level and it opens their eyes to see how good they
can be. That was yesterday. Hopefully we can get back to that level,
often, from here on out.