Middlebury defeated Tufts today 12-4 after a blistering 9-2 first half.  Tufts has an extremely athletic defense, so we were expecting some aggressive man-to-man to start the game.  Of course, they played the first quarter of the game in a zone!  We were a little slow to start with a few early turnovers and tight sticks.  It didn't take long to loosen up and start moving the ball, and we soon put it together with some impressive play.

We had some excellent offensive possessions once we got going and we benefitted from some transition goals as well.  It is difficult to pull away in a game against a quality defense if you have to earn all of your goals 6 v. 6.  Of course, you need great defense, riding and goaltending in order to start fast breaks and unsettled goals. We excelled in all 3 areas today.  Alex Palmisano was great in the goal, and outletted quickly to get the ball up the field.  Alex won the game ball for the day.  Gabe Wood was tremendous again, both on the ball and in the transition game.  We had very good efforts from Scott Atkinson and Ben Raymond on defense as well, but Sophomore John Bambrick was the standout on defense today.  He is our 4th defenseman and has been getting better and better ; today was another step in the right direction.  He took the ball away with hard checks and then also picked the ball off the ground and pushed it up the field.  He was dominant on several possessions and challenged Alex for the game ball. 

On offense we had some nice balance but we were paced by Jim Cabrera 3/1, Nick Bastis 3/0 and Aaron Herter 2/0.  It has been nice to have Cabrera and Chip Campbell back in the lineup for the past 2 games.  Cabrera has been playing both attack and midfield, giving us the flexibility to play him where we need him.  We generated 9 goals by the half, with only 3 in the second half.   The Tufts goalie did have 8 saves in the 3rd Quarter alone which certainly kept the score down a little.  We still played well and generated good shots, just did not finsih as well. 

Pete Mellen was excellent as usual, winning 11-19 face offs with most of his losses coming by losing the ball in some tough situations, almost never by getting beat cleanly.

We play a very athletic, tough, disciplined Bowdoin team on Saturday.  Look forward to seeing many of you there!

Best,
Erin