Thanks for all the support guys, it was a great day to be a Panther down in New London on Saturday.

We had a great crowd on hand despite the fact they had nowhere to stand as the entire sideline area and stands were covered in a few few of snow!  Among those down in New London to catch the game were Billy Chapman '13, Patrick Pembroke '13, Erich Pfeffer (along with his parents Katy and Pete), Chris Peterson '14, Nate Gaudio '14, and Dave Barton '82? Who was there to watch his son Briggs play for Conn.  Briggs was a handful for us all day long leading us to shut him off on man up late in the game.

Our guys showed some poise and guts in this one as we trailed until Tim Giarrusso tied it up with under four minutes to go in the 3rd quarter.  Tim's was the 2nd in a row in what would become a 6 goal run to take us from being down 7-5 to up 11-7 with 10 minutes to play.  As many of you know, Conn plays a tight zone and has a very talented goalie.  A formula that has frustrated many teams over the past few years including us on a few occasions.  For the first two and a half quarters we had some good possessions and decent looks at the cage but things changed when Nate Smith-Ide asserted himself at x in the 3rd quarter.  Nate is a sophomore on the team and saw the first game action of his career on Saturday.  To watch him skip the ball through the defense and turn the corner a few times in the 2nd half, you would have thought he was a returning All NESCAC player.  Nate was awarded the game ball for his play and it was one of the easiest calls in my 9 years at Middlebury.  Hopefully Nate can continue to play with the same confidence going forward.

Some other noteworthy performances came from our starting goalie, Will Ernst and senior captain, Joel Blockowicz.  Will ended the game with 14 saves and many of them came in spectacular fashion.  As a first time starter Will has surpassed our expectations for him in our first three games of the year and looks very comfortable in the cage.  Joel Blockowicz is finally healthy this season and finished the day with 3 goals and 3 assists while playing both ways the entire game.  Joel was just as impressive on the defensive end and in between the lines as he was on offense, by far the best game he's played in a Middlebury uniform.

Big one tomorrow up in Canton, NY/Canada after what feels like the longest 3.5 hour bus ride ever!  The Larries took it to us last year as they played very well and we simply were not ready to play.  Hopefully we show up tomorrow with the same grit, belief, and poise we've been playing with thus far.  It should be a great game (and hopefully shown over a webcast!).