After having the game delayed a half hour due to lightening, we were finally able to get back on the field yesterday against the Lord Jeffs. All you really need to know about this game is shown in the ground ball stats, Middlebury 48 - Amherst 28. We were flying all over the field coming up with most of the loose balls and initiating the action instead of reacting (slowly I might add) as we have the past few games on both ends of the field.

We got off to a quick start when Pete Smith (game ball) found Brian Foster cutting to the hoop in our first possession of the game. The next time down Pete found Jack Masur off an endline out of bounds for a 2-0 lead. After Amherst scored to cut it to 2-1 we would go on to score the next five to take a 7-1 lead. We ended up having 10 different goal scorers on our first 10 goals of the game.

Our focus this week in practice so far has been to play fast and to start making other teams feel pressure to make quicker decisions. I think we accomplished that yesterday and were definitely playing the game at a different speed than we have all year. Hopefully that's something we can start doing consistently going forward.

Pete Smith had a nice day for us finishing with 2 goals and 3 assists. Pete is as tough as they come and now that he's becoming a scoring threat it will open up other things for us on offense. We had two freshmen score their first college goals yesterday in Scott Redmond and Stew Kerr. I've written about Stew before, he's just a bull and finally got one to drop at the end of the game. Scott has filled in at attack lately and done a terrific job, he's a pretty slick player with great hands.

In the midfield both Dave Hild and Andrew "AC" Conner ended up with 2 goals apiece. It makes a big difference having AC back in the lineup after the sprained ankle he suffered during warm ups before the Conn game. He was still able to play that game but wasn't at full speed.

Defensively the group played well and Ryan Deane had a great day in the cage for us. He probably stole 3 or 4 goals from Amherst that allowed us to build a comfortable lead.

I was happy for the guys to get that win under their belt and to get a little swagger back as we head into the Bowdoin game this weekend.