Middlebury defeated Tufts today 12-4 after a blistering 9-2
first half. Tufts has an extremely athletic defense, so we were expecting
some aggressive man-to-man to start the game. Of course, they played the
first quarter of the game in a zone! We were a little slow to start with
a few early turnovers and tight sticks. It didn't take long to loosen up
and start moving the ball, and we soon put it together with some impressive
play.
We had some excellent offensive possessions once we got going and we benefitted
from some transition goals as well. It is difficult to pull away in a
game against a quality defense if you have to earn all of your goals 6 v.
6. Of course, you need great defense, riding and goaltending in order to
start fast breaks and unsettled goals. We excelled in all 3 areas today.
Alex Palmisano was great in the goal, and outletted quickly to get the ball up
the field. Alex won the game ball for the day. Gabe Wood was
tremendous again, both on the ball and in the transition game. We had
very good efforts from Scott Atkinson and Ben Raymond on defense as well, but
Sophomore John Bambrick was the standout on defense today. He is our 4th
defenseman and has been getting better and better ; today was another step in
the right direction. He took the ball away with hard checks and then also
picked the ball off the ground and pushed it up the field. He was
dominant on several possessions and challenged Alex for the game ball.
On offense we had some nice balance but we were paced by Jim Cabrera 3/1, Nick
Bastis 3/0 and Aaron Herter 2/0. It has been nice to have Cabrera and
Chip Campbell back in the lineup for the past 2 games. Cabrera has been
playing both attack and midfield, giving us the flexibility to play him where
we need him. We generated 9 goals by the half, with only 3 in the second
half. The Tufts goalie did have 8 saves in the 3rd Quarter alone
which certainly kept the score down a little. We still played well and
generated good shots, just did not finsih as well.
Pete Mellen was excellent as usual, winning 11-19 face offs with most of his
losses coming by losing the ball in some tough situations, almost never by
getting beat cleanly.
We play a very athletic, tough, disciplined Bowdoin team on Saturday.
Look forward to seeing many of you there!
Best,
Erin