The Thomsen Trophy remains in Middlebury, where it has been
since 1993! In a spirited, team effort Middlebury defeated Williams in a
light rain at Williams today. As with many games this season balance was
the key to victory.
In what has been a little bit of a habit, the early part of the game was
somewhat tentative for us. We threw some balls away on offense and Williams had
a couple of very nice possessions. It looked as if we were in for a 4
Quarter battle. They are a much improved team over the past couple of
years. They have a couple of quality attackmen
and provide some much up difficulties in the midfield with their top couple of
midfielders. It did not take long to settle down on defense,
however. Ed Brown played a dominant game against their top
handler/feeder. He stripped him on several occasions and he was not effective.
Ed received the game ball for his dominant play. After being beat early in the
game, Gabe Wood figured out their top dodger and shut
him down as well. Long Stick Midfielders Brian Phinney
and James Guay kept their top middie
from getting any quality looks. When Williams did get off any quality
shots Alex Palmisano was there to shut the
door. He ended up with 12 saves in a little over 3 Quarters of work.
On offense, we moved the ball and fed about as well as I have seen us all year,
after we got over the early game jitters. Jim Cabrera and Jamie Duke each
tallied 2 goals and 1 assist to lead the scoring. Jamie's emergence over
the past 4 games has given us some depth we were lacking in the midfield
earlier in the year. Nick Bastis was sick and
could not play, but Mark Foster, Henry Sheehan, Jon Sisto
and JP Coviello all stepped it up at attack, along
with Cabrera to help offset the loss of Bastis for
the day. We may be one of the few teams that could withstand the loss of
a top offensive player as well as we did today with our great depth.
While Pete Mellen did not dominate facing off as much
as he had the past couple of days, he was great and helped set the tone for
hard work.
We finish up the regular season against a very good Bates team on Saturday at
home at 1:00. We have already secured the #1 seed in the NESCAC
tournament and will host the NESCAC Final 4 on Saturday, May 7 and Sunday, May
8. Our focus in on Bates this weekend!