We moved to 8-0 yesterday and more importantly 6-0 in the NESCAC after a close win down at Amherst.  The fans on hand for this one were treated to an exciting game with plenty of highlight reel goals, saves, and some big hits.

We jumped out to a pretty comfortable lead in the first half after Tom Petty scored three consecutive goals to put us up 5-2.  We would stretch the lead to 10-4 at the half with two goals from Jim Cabrera, and two big time shots from Mike Stone.  The second of which came in an unsettled situation when Amherst matched up one of their long poles on Mike, he drove left handed, stopped, rolled back right handed and launched one from 14 yards in the upper corner.  It looked effortless but he definitely generated a lot of torque on that shot.

We would open up the scoring in the 2nd half as Amherst decided their best option defensively would be to put long poles on Stone and Cabrera in the midfield and put a short stick on Tom Petty at attack.  Tom would end up with 3 more goals in the 2nd half and made the most of his match up against a shortie.

Unfortunately after we opened up the lead to 11-4 it was all Amherst for the rest of the 3rd quarter and for about half of the 4th.  Amherst has some talented offensive players and started generating some great looks at the cage.  They also took advantage of some failed clears on our part as well as some unforced turnovers offensively.  All of this led to Amherst making it a 11-10 game with 11 minutes to play.  On the ensuing face off we took a penalty and went man down for a minute.  Fortunately we killed the penalty and were able to find Alex Giammarco releasing over the midline as we were clearing the ball.  Alex streaked down the sideline and after realizing that nobody was picking him up he decided to go to the cage.   He had lost some angle while running down the sideline and actually used a swim move on one of their defenseman to get back to the middle of the field left handed and ripped a shot right past the keeper's ear from about 11 yards out.   After the entire team had been tightening up for the 2nd half it was nice to see someone step up and make a play.   Gio would end up winning the game ball in large part because of this play but also because of his excellent work on face offs and at defensive middie. 

Pete Britt was very good in goal, we definitely left him hanging out to dry on a number of occasions and they have some guys who can flat out shoot the ball.  If I'm not mistaken, all of their goals were from within 7 yards.   James Guay and John Bambrick were excellent and put the ball on the ground all day for us. 

Last but not least, Yanik Bababekov played some significant minutes for us as our back up long stick middie and made a few solid fundamental plays for us that helped us win the game. The reason I mention Yanik is that I think it will make some of you think back to your days on our team.  Yanik is a senior who has been with the team for 4 years and who comes to practice every day with a smile on his face and works his tail off.  When Glenn Bickley went down during the Williams game, we bumped Yanik into the playing rotation and he was ready when his name was called.  Every good team needs a few guys like Yanik who epitomize being selfless and we're lucky to have him!

Rensselaer on Tuesday, they're 8-2 and have surprised some people this year.  We'll have our hands full and look forward to the next challenge!