The 2007 Panthers took the field for the first time last night against Skidmore College and literally took the field for the first time as it was our first chance to lgo ive on a full field! We had a chance to walk through our rides and clears yesterday afternoon on a full field covered with numerous patches of ice so needless to say it wasn't at "full speed"

Although we weren't keeping score it was interesting to see how both teams responded to runs by the other team during the course of the scrimmage.  We jumped out early with 4 quick goals as our starters showed a lot of poise for it being their first time playing together.  Skidmore settled down and ended up scoring the next 3 goals, of which two were on man-up.  Once they went on a little run you could see our guys tighten up a bit which led to some sloppy turnovers and mental errors on our part.  We settled down and ended finishing the scrimmage off strong at both ends of the field. At the end of the day it was great to get everyone involved and to put our young guys in some situations where they were under pressure.

Some performances worth noting were turned in by Nick Bastis who was (2,1) in the scrimmage and looks to be ready for a big year.  Mike Stone has separated himself as our top option in the midfield and finished (1,2) on the day.  Mike is our fastest middie, he has a great shot on the run and best of all, he competes.  We were all pleasantly surprised to see Dave Campbell (no relation) finish with 2 goals.  Dave injured his knee last January and missed the entire 2006 season.  This year he'll split face off duties with Peter Mellen and play a major role as one of our short stick defensive middies.  Finally, James Guay who also missed the 2006 season showed he is going to be an outstanding close defenseman for us this year.  He has the ability to put the ball on the ground with some hard, well timed checks and then also is fantastic on ground balls.

We have a lot of work to do but there were a lot of positives to be taken away from last night.  It looks like we're going to have some warmer weather for practice this week and hopefully will be much further along when we go against Keene St. and Merrimack next weekend in Keene!