I'll start off by saying that this will be my shortest game recap of the year.  I'm already late for the team tailgate and need to run over to our alumni event at Ups before breaking down film with Coach Brakeley this evening!  Tomorrow I'm off to watch some sophomores and juniors down in Mass!

So, I'll get right to it.  We have a great goalie in Nate Gaudio.  He gave up one goal and even though he was only credited for 7 saves it felt like he had 10-15 as each of them was a big-time stop.  He won the game ball and was a true game changer in goal for us today.  It's also worth mentioning that he's outstanding out of the cage and gets the ball out of his stick on the clear as quickly as any goalie I've ever coached.

Our defense and our pressure ride was the difference in the game today.  Bates couldn't handle our pressure in the middle of the field and weren't able to generate enough good looks against our defense in settled situations.  The starting close defense of Johnny Duvnjak, Billy Chapman, and Zach Driscoll, all played very well and our starting LSM, Zach Dayno played the best game of his career.  The encouraging part of all of this is that we were without three of our six best poles today with Henry Clark, Matt Rayner, and Darric White all on the sideline with injuries.  We expect a few of them to be back soon….

Offensively we had a lousy day and much of it was unforced, the guys were a little tight and it led to some sloppy play on our part.    Another encouraging sign from today was that our team never went into a shell and did improve all the way through the 4th quarter even when things weren't clicking on the offensive end.  I like this team's make up mentally and hope it will serve us well as we get into the heart of our schedule.

Next up is an always hungry Springfield team down at their place on Wednesday at 5pm.  Hope to see a few of you there!