We scrimmaged at Dartmouth last night.  Although it was very cold, there was no wind, and it was a little warmer than some of the forecasts.  Of course, that is coming from someone who did not play and who was dressed for the Ididarod.  You may get a different description of the conditions from a player holding onto a Titanium shaft!

The scrimmage was perfect for us.  The weather has been crazy this year, so although we have the turf field, we have only had one outdoor full field day and one outdoor half field day.  We had not done any riding or clearing, and our outdoor, full field passing and catching skills were abysmal at the start.  We played 2-45 minute running time halves and we did not have any possessions for the first 20 minutes or so.  We could not clear the ball and we could not pass and catch when we did clear.  After we warmed up a little, settled down, and became a little more accustomed to the size of the field our basic skills returned to us.

Dartmouth played very well, especially offensively and in the goal.  I thought it was one of the better Dartmouth teams we have seen in terms of moving the ball and particularly shooting.  Had we kept score, they would have beaten us handily.  Not to worry, though, we showed some good signs.  I told the guys that we will not know how to evaluate this scrimmage for another week or so.  If we are still making the same mistakes in that time, then we have a long way to go.  If we can learn from the scrimmage and improve commensurately, then we will have an excellent team this year.  I would bet on the latter.

Following is an overview of the team based on last night and practices to date:

ATTACK:

We played 5 attackmen equally.  Juniors Henry Sheehan and Jon Sisto started along with Senior Mark Foster.  Mark is the only returning starter, he scored 37 goals last year as a junior.  He brings an excellent LH shot, along with lacrosse savvy and excellent stick skills.  He is more of an off-ball, shooter type, but has the stick skills and some size to create some opportunities as well.  Henry and Jon are lefties also, and along with Sophomore Nick Bastis, this gives us 4 lefty attackmen!

Henry and Jon both had some flashes last night, although both can play better.  Henry is a smart player, with good vision and feeding ability.  Jon has quick feet and excellent skills, and was close to creating or finishing several excellent opportunities last night, but was not able to do so.  When they settle into their roles and we play a better team offense, they will shine.  Nick Bastis and Freshmen Jim Cabrera were the other two attackmen.  Jim did a PG year at Taft, the year before he and Bastis were teammates at Greenwich High School. I don’t know how they did not win more games, because these two guys are exceptional.  They are much different than the older attackmen.  Nick and Jim are explosive dodgers, who are both exceptional athletes.  They put a lot of pressure on the defense and can both score and feed.  It will be fun to watch them develop.  I think they will both score a bunch of goals this year.  It looks as if we will be able to play 5 attackmen anytime we wish this year, depending on match ups, and who is playing best at that particular time.  For those of you familiar with our personnel and who may be wondering about junior J.P. Coviello, he has an injury and is trying to figure the extent of the injury.

MIDFIELD:

We are again deep and talented in the midfield, although we have not yet identified any defensive midfielders to join Senior Captain Mike Murray, who played great last night, a definite stand out on the field.  We have several middies who are playing offense well who can also play defense and run the field.  The best bet is that we will play more full-time middies to take the defensive runs and they will stay on and play offense.  We like our “d-middies” to have athletic ability and offensive skills so we can run and score in transition, so this fits well with our system.  Senior Captain Dave Leach leads the group of all around middies.  Joining him are Travis Meyer and Chip Campbell.  Aaron Herter is a quick, ambidextrous junior who looked great last night.  He played well last year, but is poised to do great things.  He has an extremely quick first step and can feed and shoot with both hands.  In fact, last night when he broke his defenders ankles and ripped a lefty shot, his strong hand, I said “nice shot with your off hand” because he has developed into an arguably better shooter righty, his off hand.  Jeff Pello is a great cutter and finisher who rounds out the returning players who contributed the most last night.  Freshman Rory Sanborn from McDonogh in Baltimore had two goals last night and can break into the lineup based on his exceptional shooting ability, stick skills and lacrosse knowledge.  He had 2 goals on two shots last night and moved the ball smartly after his dodges when the defense took away his shot.  He is not exceptionally fast, but can create goals with excellent stick protection and does not need a lot of room to shoot.  He will be tough to keep out of the lineup just based on his ability to score.  Will Simpson is a big sophomore who was converted from attack last year that can develop into an excellent middie as well. He is 6’2 190 with excellent skills with both hands and excellent vision.  He is still learning to adapt his game to the midfield, but when he does he can be very difficult to defend.

FACE OFF:

Sophomore Peter Mellen developed into our #1 guy by the end of last year and picked up right where he left off last night.  He played great last night, both in winning face offs cleanly and in scrapping for ground balls.  He will be excellent. Pete will be backed up by freshman Dave Campbell.  Dave is a great athlete, tenacious and a great guy.  The difference in experience between Peter and Dave was apparent last night, but Dave has a bright future for us.  He is also an outstanding athlete who can play defense and will develop into someone that can score goals as he shoots hard and can run by people. 

DEFENSE:

We were able to see some new faces play as we have two hockey players, Brian Phinney and John Sales who played defense for us last year and Sophomore Ben Raymond is injured.  Seniors Ed Brown and Will Rawson both played and looked excellent, as we would expect.  Junior Gabe Wood, who filled for John West when we lost John last year, looks excellent as well.  Those 3 guys give us outstanding size, strength and athletic ability on our close defense.  Junior Scott Atkinson is a strong, hard working defenseman who has played well this pre-season and continued to look good last night.  He has worked hard in the weight room, is impressive physically, so I am glad to see it pay off for him.  Two freshmen have stood out in pre-season and continued to do so last night.  Glenn Bickley is a small, quick Long Stick Midfielder from St. Alban’s, DC, with an incredible stick.  He is quick with his hands, great on GB’s, and his stick is good enough that I would guess that an opposing coach might ask for a stick check (I had better check his stick today after a couple plays last night.  In one particular play, he was on the ground cradling the ball with 2 Dartmouth defenders hacking away, he ended up bouncing a pass to Bastis to retain possession!)  James Guay is the other freshman who played great last night, as well as during pre-season.  He is a great athlete, strong and quick with great hands.  He can play both down low or in the midfield, he will play mostly as a LSM right now until we get Phinney and Sales from hockey, then we will have to decide what to do.  He can be an imposing player on the ball and between the lines.  Of course with both of these guys there will be some freshmen mistakes, but we will live with them if they keep performing.  John Bambrick is a 6’3 freshman defenseman who is slightly behind these 2, but will be an excellent player for us at some point.

GOALIE:

Sophomore Alex Palmisano started and played the entire game for us last night.  He is the #1 guy and sat behind Krieger all last year, so we gave him the whole game.  We also thought it would be difficult to sit for a ½ and then come in and play, so we kept Alex in.  He played great, made a bunch of “ridiculous” saves, although he obviously gave up some goals as well.  They scored enough goals to beat us handily (we did not keep score), but I did not feel there were more than one or two that Alex did not save that he should have, and there were several that he did save and he had no business doing so.  I was most impressed with how he outletted the ball, as that is critical to our success with our athletes in the midfield and defense.