Middlebury
defeated
Our offense
was reasonably effective against the zone, except for a couple of periods in
which forced some passes and lost approximately 6 possessions in a row.
However, for the most part we were patient, and we moved with and without
the ball reasonably well. We might typically get 40-50 shots in a game, we only generated 25 since we possessed the ball more
and had that string of turnovers. Their goalie played well in the cage, I
think we made him comfortable early when we generated a couple of quality
shots, but rushed the shots a little, hitting him, and probably getting him
into the game.
The offense
was led by Freshman Attackman Jim Cabrera’s 3 goals,
Junior Midfielder Travis Meyer’s 2 goals/3 assists and Senior Midfielder Dave
Leach’s 2 goals/1 assist. Cabrera generated the best offensive
opportunities on the day, and if this were a few games down the road, with a
little more experience, he may have netted 5 instead of 3. He is a big,
fast Right-handed attackman with a strong shot.
He has a knack for getting his hands free for shots and being in the
right spot, and his teammates are getting the knack for finding him. Two
of Meyer’s assists were to Cabrera. Meyer, Leach and Herter
all looked excellent in the midfield along with Senior Mike Murray and Junior
Chip Campbell logging a lot of defensive minutes and playing well also.
Our team
defense was excellent. Ed Brown matched up on their All American Attackman and did a great job. It was a fun 1 v. 1
match up with each getting the best of the other at times, but battling all
day. Gabe Wood matched up well on a very good attackman and took him out of his game, which is to be a
speed dodger. Senior Will Rawson did a great
job on their 3rd Attackman in a less
glamorous role, as he is a spectacular off ball player, who typically gets 3 goals/game off ball. Will shadowed him all game, and
he did not beat Will off ball. He did have one great, back handed,
underhand Man Up goal late in the game.
Not
everything went our way, there is clearly work to do. As I mentioned, we
did throw the ball away too much on offense. Defensively, there were a
couple of breakdowns with the team defense, not many, but enough to work on.
We tend to be a very good on-ball team, and a good first slide
team. Where we need work is against a nifty, feeding team, since I do not
consider ourselves that type of offense. I think we see athletic, hard
dodgers in practice and that is what we play best against. Having said
that, we only gave up 7 goals, 3 were man down, one on a fast break and only 3,
6 v. 6 goals, so no need to panic! Our Man Down showed some inexperience,
looking slightly baffled while giving up 3 goals in 4 attempts. We were
also beaten badly on face offs. I think a lot of the face off woes is on
the coaches. Springfield handles us well often on face offs, and I think
it has more to do with wing play than at the face of Box (notice I said Face
Off Box, and not Face Off X? This year the X has been replaced by a 4 x 4
box of a contrasting color, ours is blue, so the refs can be certain the sticks
are 4 inches apart from each other, as opposed to last year’s “up to, but not
touching, the ball.”) We need to coach our wings better in general, and certainly better when we play
Finally,
Sophomore Goaltender Alex Palmisano was awarded the
game ball in his first start. He played great, making some spectacular
saves, and doing a great job on outlets. It was a comforting feeling
having Alex play so well after having Krieger in the cage for the past 4 years.
We play
Stevens Institute on Saturday at 1:00 at home. They have been an
Automatic Qualifier NCAA playoff team for the past several years and are
playing well right now. I think we surprised them a little in the NCAA’s last year when we beat them handily, I think they
are better than that and it should be a great game. Opening a
non-conference schedule with