I
hope all is well. We open with Colby
this weekend at home at
Attack:
Charley
Howe and Mike Saraceni are both senior returning starters
and they will lead the attack. Saraceni is a polished all around attackman
who has shown a great ability to feed that I didn't know he had his first
couple of seasons. He ended the season
with over 30 assists last year. He
quarterbacks our Man Up unit. Howe is a
big, strong dodger and shooter. He will
turn the ball over a little, but will also create offense more than our other
attackmen. Finding the balance will be
important to him. Two of our top four returners from last year, Senior Ben Tobey
and Sophomore Jon Sisto, have been limited by pulled
muscle injuries since the first practice. Tobey
returned to practice yesterday and looked great. He gives us an extremely quick, ground ball,
riding, feeder. Sisto
practiced 1/2 speed yesterday and is probably a week away. In their absence a couple of players have
emerged. Junior Mark Foster is a tall
lefty with a great shot, great stick and great finishing ability. His speed is limited, but will be a man up
starter and could get a couple goals a game even with limited action due to his
skills. Freshman Nick Bastis could be a great
one. He is a tremendous finisher and is
more explosive than all of our other attackmen (all other players in fact,
other than his brother, Senior Greg Bastis.) Nick is a 6'0 190 lefty, he should see a
considerable amount of time. We had a
Man Up/Man Down competition at the end of practice yesterday. With man up behind 4 games to none, Nick scored
3 consecutive goals to bring man up back into the game, which they eventually
won, leading to the man down unit running "gassers"! Of course, you may hear that the man up
strategy was to prolong the game until it was dark and the goalies could not
see the ball anymore, but don't listen to those excuses. Brad Myers, J.P. Coviello,
Henry Sheehan and Will Simpson are all very good at back up spots!
Midfield:
The
top two middies are Senior Greg Bastis and Junior
Dave Leach. They are both terrific
athletes who have played a lot of d-middie in their
careers. They will continue to play a
lot of defense, because of their ability to defend, but also so we can get them
out in front of some fast breaks. They
are both
Defense:
Senior
John West and Junior Ed Brown combine to give us as strong a #1/#2 combo as
there is in the country. West is 6'5/6'5
245 and Ed is 6'2 210 and built like an NFL player. Will Rawson who has played mostly Long Stick
Midfield his first two seasons will round out the starters at close
defense. It is another position with
great depth, however. Senior Rob
Borden(6'3 200) should see quality minutes. He is not as fast as the other
guys, but very poised and smart and has an incredible stick. Sophomore Gabe Wood
(6'3 220) is also a great soccer player and will see a lot of time and
continues to get better all the time.
Senior Tom O'Connor has played better than ever at LSM, he will be
backed up by Rawson bumping up from close and Freshman Graham Cvinar who has looked very impressive. Freshman Ben Raymond will see some time at
close as well, he is big at 6'3 200 (we have a huge group of defensemen!) and
has great hands. He also is a smart defender, especially for a
freshman. Brother Jed has taught him well!
Goalie:
Eric
Krieger looks better than ever at this point of this season, which is saying a
lot. He is relaxed and confident in the
goal and makes great outlet passes to our breaking middies. He will be backed up by Freshman Alex Palmisano who looks as if he can be an outstanding heir
apparent to Krieger's job.
As I
said before, we still have to get the job done on the field and the competition
is deep in our league, but we are playing well and looking forward to getting
started this weekend.
Best,
Erin