In case you were wondering why you felt some butterflies in your stomach a few weeks back but couldn't quite put your finger on why, the fitness test has come and gone and we're now into our 2nd full week of practice up here in VT.  On Saturday we traveled down to Schenectady for a scrimmage with Union and got exactly what we needed out of the trip.  With all the new rule changes being put in place for this season it was great for us to start to get a feel for how things are going to be called and how the rules will affect the pace of the game.  There's no question that with quicker restarts all over the field and with the removal of the horn on sideline out of bounds it's sped up the game significantly.  I believe all of the rule changes should help our team as we get into the season as they only enhance the way we like to play and allow us to push the tempo.

As for the scrimmage itself, after only a few practices out on a full field we were expecting to see some growing pains and for Union to be further along than us, that was certainly the case on Saturday.  Union looks like they're going to have a nice squad this year and came out of the gates pretty aggressively on both ends of the field.  The bright spot for us would have to be our play in the goal starting with junior Nate Gaudio our returning starter.  He made some nice saves and made some athletic plays on ground balls around the crease.  All three of our other goalies played a quarter each and all showed they're capable of stepping in and helping us down the road.  Senior Jack Reilly, sophomore Gabe Weissmann, and first-year Miller Steinle have been playing well in practice and we're lucky to have such a strong group in the cage this spring.

A few other names to keep an eye on as we get into the season are Scott Redmond, Harrison Goodkind, and Jack Cleary.  Scott is a senior and after playing mostly attack during his first three years we've asked him to move into the midfield this spring and he's made the transition look easy.   He's been playing with confidence since the first day of practice and it showed on Saturday as he contributed two goals and an assist.  Harrison Goodkind (Branford/Choate PG) is a first-year and after earning some playing time at slot receiver for the football team in the fall, it looks like he's going to be able to help us in the midfield this spring. Harrison is an explosive athlete and a very skilled lacrosse player, he had a nice goal for us on Saturday and created some other opportunities that he wasn't able to finish.  Finally, Jack Cleary (Georgetown Prep) has shown in practice that he has the ability to break a defender's ankles with his split dodge and he put it to good use on Saturday for a couple of goals late in the game.

The final score of the scrimmage was 10-8 with Union leading by two or three goals most of the way.  Our goal in these early scrimmages is to find out what we need to work on moving forward and Saturday gave us plenty of good film and motivation to get back to work.  Not surprisingly we had our best and most competitive practice of the year in the stadium yesterday and hopefully that's a launching point for a productive week heading into our St. Mike's scrimmage next Saturday.

On a completely separate note, we're planning to have our alumni weekend for the Colby game on April 20th, it's a 1pm start.  It would be great to get a head count so I can find a space that will work for our group this year to get together for a bit after the game.

Best,

Dave