Our season came to an end yesterday down at Amherst and they’ll be moving on to play RIT this week in the quarterfinals. The story of the game was the Amherst goalie that had played well all season but saved his best performance of his career for us yesterday. Our guys played their tails off as we won the face off battle, the ground ball battle, and played hard until the final whistle.

We had a chance to jump on them early as we took 21 shots in the first quarter but were only able to get two past their goalie. I know some have accused us of settling for shots but when I go back and watch the film I’m confident I’ll like most of the looks we generated over the course of the day and certainly in that opening frame. I’ll also say that we had as many or more good looks as the Jeffs had but they were able to take advantage of a few nice bounces on their end.

It was nice to see us win the face off match up again as well yesterday. 14 for 25 isn’t a dominating performance but it certainly beat our 8-20 effort earlier in the year against them. I really can’t say enough about Coach Brakeley and the hard work he and the face off unit have put in this year. From the beginning of the season where we were hovering around 30% most of the time to where we were yesterday was night and day. The most glaring example was last week against Tufts where we were over 60% against the same kid who just a year ago owned us to the tune of 75% and 67% in our playoff games. The combination of film work, extra time before and after practice by the entire face off unit as well as all of the time we devoted in practice each day to facing off seems to have paid off. It also helped having Darric White and Billy Chapman on the wings for the second half of the season. Those two are going to be special and already turned some heads this year.

It’s always difficult to have our journey come to an end and to see the faces of the seniors as they walk off the field for the last time. Yesterday was no different and we’ll certainly miss this group next year. Fortunately we have a great group returning and while we’ll need some guys to step up (especially in the midfield), I love the determination of our team and can’t wait to see our incoming guys play over the next few weeks as I begin my summer travels.

Thanks to all of you for the kind notes throughout the course of the season and for staying involved with our program. We’re all so fortunate to be a part of such a special group and I can’t wait to spend time with some of you out in Vail next month!

Viva,viva la, viva la Kohn!