The boys came to play down in Troy yesterday and took it to a good RPI team 16-8. It was the perfect weather for a game, low-mid 60's and there was a great crowd on hand to cheer both teams on. The RPI band and the jumbotron were some nice additions to give the game an even better playoff atmosphere.

Both teams came out flying and had some good looks early but it was finally senior Russ Banker who stuck a shot to break the ice about 7 minutes into the game. He would go on to make an outstanding play on a feed to David Hild in the third quarter and then ripped another overhand shot from about 10 yds in the upper corner. You would never have guessed that those were Russ' first career points, he received the game ball from his teammates.

We benefited from some excellent face off work by both Peter Jennings and Brian Foster which allowed us to play make it -take it for most of the first half. We would continue to win critical face offs in the 2nd half as well and our wings did a nice job of getting the ball up for us all day.

Defensively our guys were flying to the ball when it was on the ground and did a great job of starting up our transition game from that end of the field. Our d-middies, Matt Virtue, Alex Englert, Bart Witmer and Jeff Begin all ran the field with a purpose and put a ton of pressure on the RPI defense.

On offense David Hild had another monster game going 5 and 1 and could have easily scored 7 or 8. Tim Cahill finished with 3 goals and the rest of the scoring was pretty balanced.

The single biggest reason for our run in the postseason has been the play and leadership of our senior class. Since halftime of the Amherst game, all nine members have been contributing on the field in some capacity and playing with a great deal of confidence. I hope we can keep it up and that the rest of the team follows their lead down in Medford on Wednesday.