Thanks to everyone for all of the encouragement this week and for the congratulatory emails yesterday after the game. I'm excited that we were able to keep the Thomsen Trophy in Middlebury and that we sent our seniors off with a win. Our guys played hard against the Ephs and fought through some sloppy play over the course of the game to come out with the W.
All of our seniors that were physically able to compete yesterday did a nice job. Tim Cahill and Jack Balaban both finished with two goals, Peter Jennings had a great assist in transition, Alex Englert stuck a nice shot to open up our scoring in the 2nd half, and Jon Beek was able to get some runs in at midfield with Jack and Alex. Defensively both Heath Townsend and Zach Dayno played well and with great energy. Zach has done a terrific job this year and has developed into a very good NESCAC player. He played the best lacrosse of his career over the past month and was the spark for us on many occasions in practice and in games recently. Heath has been outstanding for us with his attitude and the energy he's brought to the team, another selfless individual that we've been fortunate to have in our program for four years.
Unfortunately both Matt Rayner and Henry Clark weren't able to go, capping off an incredibly tough season for both of them. Going into this spring both Henry and Matt had been three year starters for us on defense and this year managed to start only one game between the two of them and only appeared in four games each. As I've said before about Matt, I can't imagine an athlete showing more strength and leadership under such a tough set of circumstances. Henry had issues with both of his hamstrings this season and was never able to go full speed even when he made his way back on the field for a few games in the middle of the year. He did everything he could to get back out there with his teammates and also did a tremendous job of staying positive and engaged throughout the season.
Some of the most impressive performances of the day ended up coming from our current junior class and hopefully it's a sign of good things to come in 2013! Mike Giordano finished with a goal and four assists while Stew Kerr added another three goals to become our leading goal scorer on the year. Zach Driscoll was all over the place on the defensive end creating turnovers and shut down Williams' leading scorer Sam Hargrove. Hargrove's only point came when he ended up getting a short stick match up behind the cage and quickly found a cutter on the crease. The other performance worth noting came from Andrew Metros. Andrew finished with a team high 8 ground balls while also contributing two goals and two assists. Andrew came a long way this year in terms of his focus on the field and while he still has some room to grow in that area, he's proving that he can be a difference maker for us at both ends of the field.
It was an odd feeling walking off the field yesterday after ending the season with a win but without a championship to show for it. There were some tears, some smiles, and mixed emotions for all of us. I'm interested to hear what our guys take away from this season as we meet this upcoming week and also to see how this effects all of our returning players as we begin to prepare for next year.
Off to our end of the year meeting and will be sure to report back on our postseason awards in the next week or so.