Middlebury will travel to
I am running around making
plans, preparing for Cortland, picking All American teams (due tomorrow), etc
and picking my kids up from school in a few minutes, so I am not sure how this
wrap up of the Nazareth game is going to turn out.
We were a swarming team
yesterday. To be honest, the 3 goalies
they played did not make many saves, and that made the day easier for us, but I
think we would have had a great result against any goalie. We dominated the
possession aspect of the game: 60 ground balls for Midd, 40 for Naz; over 50%
of Face Offs, but I believe the stats are deceiving, we handled them on face
offs; they were only 60% clearing the ball, we were tenacious riding. Our most
tenacious ground ball/riding/effort game of the year. That is why I think that
even if they had a hot goalie they would have struggled against us on this day.
Charley Howe led the attack
with 5 goals with great dodging and shooting, Freshman Jon Sisto added 3. Mike Frissora and Greg Bastis both looked
like studs, scoring 4 goals each from the midfield and playing their usual athletic
game as well. Despite giving up 12 goals
it was a strong defensive effort. They
scored a number of man up goals and also a number of unsettled and some garbage
goals. There were very few 6 v. 6
opportunities that they created vs. our defense. It looked as if they were very reluctant to
attempt to generate offense vs. our close defense. This may be their style, it may be based on
what they saw our long sticks do on-ball vs. Springfield.
Overall it was a great
effort against a worthy opponent in the Quarterfinals. Cortland will present more of a test in that
I believe they have a stronger defense along with a much stronger
goaltender. They have a beautiful new
"field turf" facility with a great stadium, so there should be a
tremendous playoff atmosphere...can't wait!
Erin