The Panthers were in action again on Saturday against St. Mike's and St. Lawrence in the final tune ups before the start of the regular season.  The story of the day had to be the temperature outside hovering in the low 20's with some serious wind coming out of the North.  Despite the temperature, it was a good day of lacrosse for everyone involved.

The St. Mike's scrimmage was a very even run from start to finish with both teams having a hard time clearing the ball.  On offense they had enough weapons to show us what we still need to work on defensively and hopefully we can make some improvements this week.  Our offense generated some good looks at the cage but overall I'd say we're still inconsistent at that end of the field in terms of our decision making.  We had balanced scoring in the scrimmage and wouldn't say there were any standout performances at either end of the field. 

I'd say we were a little crisper on both sides of the ball in the St. Lawrence scrimmage and did some good things in the middle of the field both in the riding and in the clearing game.  Freshman LSM Briggs Davis got us on the board with a nice goal in transition early on and we followed that up with three more unsettled goals to jump out to a 5-1 lead.  Pete Smith got in the action early with three goals and an assist in the first quarter.  Pete isn't going to wow anyone with a cannon of a shot or an ankle breaking split dodge but at the end of most games he's going to end up with 3-5 points and do everything we ask of him. 

The play of the day was probably a man-up goal that we scored in the 1st qtr.  We were in our 3-3 set with Dave Hild being our top righty shooter and Matt Ferrer being the crease guy who had pulled high up on the crease as Dave caught the ball.  When a crease guy pulls high up in a 3-3 against a team that is stringing the crease it is usually the two low defenseman who need to pinch to cover him.  So in one fluid motion as Matt caught the ball and the two low defensemen converged on him, he fired it to the low lefty spot where Pete Smith was sneaking behind his defenseman.  We've probably talked about that scenario once in practice so far but Matt and Pete made it look pretty easy.  It definitely stood out to me that our lacrosse IQ on our man up squad is pretty high this year.

Now it's time to get ready for the Bobcats who will be in town next Saturday.  Fortunately they are playing this Wednesday at Keene St. and we'll be able to get a bit of a scout on them.   The weather looks pretty nasty this week so we'll be keeping a close eye on it, hopefully we don't have any issues getting the game in. 

Best,

Dave

Dave Campbell ('00)

Head Men's Lacrosse Coach

Memorial Field House

Middlebury College

Middlebury, VT 05753

(o) 802/443-5263

(f)  802/443-2091

djcampbe@middlebury.edu