We picked up a gutsy road win yesterday down at Amherst which won't go down as our best performance of the year but it was good enough to get the w.

Amherst has some talented players and they're a very streaky squad, if you let them in the game they can play with anyone and that's what we did.  You could say they aren't going to come after you like a Bates or a Colby but if you give them some hope early they can ride that emotion and feed off of it.

Defensively we didn't accomplish what we set out to do which was to take their feeder at x out of the game, he ended up with 2 goals and 4 assists.  Chalk that up to inexperience and still not understanding situational lacrosse at that end of the field, hopefully as we get towards the end of the season we can become a little more savvy on the defensive end. 

Making up for many mistakes yesterday was Pete Britt in goal, I have him down for 12 saves after reviewing the film and he was rock solid.  He also came up with some huge gb's out of the cage and made some great looks in the clearing game.  He is a game changer at that end of the field and playing with a lot of confidence. 

Another bright spot defensively was freshman Henry Clark (Kent Denver, CO).  Henry has been playing for us from day one as our back up long stick middie and has slowly been gaining confidence in his game at this level.  We have been urging him to be more aggressive and to make some plays and he did just that yesterday.  He must of put the ball on the ground 2 or 3 times in the middle of the field and came up with 4gb's.  He ended up winning the game ball from the captain's.

Offensively we didn't have our best day, credit Amherst's game plan and unorthodox goalie for that.  They played an aggressive man to man defense where they were pressing out on us and not sliding to anyone but Mike Stone.  Since we've played so many quick sliding teams this year that pack it in off ball I think it took us out of what we're used to doing on offense.  They also shut off Pete Smith with a short stick for most of the game, he finished with a goal and 4 assists.   We generated plenty of good looks throughout the game but because their goalie was guessing low on most shots and dropping his hands we ended up playing right into his hands by putting the ball low and sometimes to his stick side where he already was guessing before the shot!  

Performances worth noting on offense were Skyler Hopkins and Tom Petty who each finished the game with 4 goals.  They were the two guys who put the ball to good spots and also took advantage of a defense that wasn't going to slide to them.  It's nice to see two seniors step up like that in a game where we weren't exactly clicking on offense.

As I told the team last night when we arrived in Middlebury, we still have a long way to go mentally to be able to compete with the best in our league but we have the guys in our locker room to do it.  Stay tuned.....

Big one this weekend in Brunswick, ME.  If you don't have anything going on this Saturday at 1pm we could definitely use your support!!!!!!

Also as a reminder, we're going to be having our alumni weekend on 4/11 (Tufts, currently undefeated and arguably the #1 team in D3 right now) and if we have enough people attend we'll play our alumni game on 4/12.  Once again I apologize for the timing of alumni weekend this year but we just didn't have any good options with our schedule this year and figured a few people would still be able to make it up on Easter weekend.  We'll have a get together at Mr. Up's on Saturday night after the game for anyone who makes the trip up to VT!

It's a great day to be a Panther!