The Panthers wrapped up the preseason yesterday down in Keene, NH against Keene State and Merrimack.   It was your typical late winter day with the wind howling and the temperature in the high 20's.  The day started off with a sloppy and uninspired quarter against Keene in which we turned the ball over on offense and lost the ground ball battle.  We were playing 15 minute running quarters so the scrimmage went pretty quickly overall.   Our guys picked it up in the 2nd and 3rd quarter and ended up outshooting Keene 25-5 over that span.  It looks like we're going to be able to generate some good looks this year, we just need guys to start canning some of their opportunities.  Nick Bastis did some good things on the offensive end in the first scrimmage while Alex Palmisano looked good in the cage at the other end.  We ended up playing everyone in the final quarter to get some of the back ups a little game experience. 

The Merrimack scrimmage was not as competitive as the Keene scrimmage but by that point our guys had loosened up and at the same time started to play with more intensity.  We jumped on them early and the guys started sticking some of their shots.  Tom Petty (Exeter, NH) had a few nice goals both off of feeds from Nick Bastis.  Mike Stone (Wellesley, MA) also shot the ball well and played some excellent on ball defense in the midfield.  The defense was solid and did a nice job clearing the ball overall.  Pete Britt (Summit, NJ) our sophomore goalie played most of the Merrimack scrimmage and did and excellent job of outletting the ball to our middies in transition. 

If anything, the scrimmages provided our guys with some extra incentive to work hard this week in practice.  We saw that today as we were outside on the turf and had what could arguably be our best practice of the year.  Hopefully that will continue the rest of the week and we'll be ready for Stevens this Sunday.  They're coming off a big win (17-9) over Ithaca who was ranked in the top ten.  Stevens will come into the game ranked #8 in the country and fired up. 

We'll find out quickly who's ready to play in a big game this year!