A collective deep breath was heard around 4:00 yesterday after the Panthers finished off a tough league stretch with a 8-6 victory over Amherst at Amherst.

The weekend began with a home game against Bowdoin Saturday. Conditions were great as it was a sunny day, still on Kohn Field as the grass won't be ready until this week sometime. We came out hot and jumped on them early and the early indication was that we might be on a roll for the day. Veterans of Middlebury/Bowdoin contests would know better! I think Bowdoin is an improved team over last year despite a 4-5 record coming into the game. If you remember, Bowdoin was the only team to defeat us last year on our way to the championship. The Polar Bears kept scrapping back every time we thought we would pull away. I thought they played extremely hard and were able to get to as many if not more loose balls on the day, generating some extra possessions. Our defense was a little flatfooted after a great start and Bowdoin's fired up team gained some momentum with their offense. Unlike some of our other struggles this year, it was our offense who bought some time for our defense to catch up in the first half. With 9 goals by the half, one would think this year's team would be in great shape, but Bowdoin had 6 and promptly scored the first two goals of the 3rd Quarter. Any hopes of us pulling away were quickly dashed by these two goals, we were in for a dogfight. To our guys credit, they were unfazed by the Bowdoin run and were able to regroup defensively and the teams settled in for a defensive game with lots of errors in the clearing game by both teams, some of which were definitely generated by both hard riding attack units. We were able to pull ahead to 13-9, but once again Bowdoin stormed back to close the game to 13-11. We went mandown at the end of the game, and were one goal and a lost face off away from staring at OT! We successfully defended the man down and cleared the ball to run out the clock and win the game. Mike Saraceni was great in the winning effort with 4 goals and 3 assists as was Junior Bob Wannop who continues to make a quiet contribution as a defensive midfielder. I made the comment to Coach Steve Monninger before the Amherst game that Bob Wannop has yet to make a mistake in a practice or game all year, probably a slight exaggeration, but you get the point! The best part of that story is that Bob is a walk on from Woodstock, VT who was accepted as a Feb, cut by us his first year, worked like crazy the next year and just won us over with his tenacity, intelligence and heart last year. One of Bob's contributions is that he is good enough for us to play Sophomore Dave Leach more on the offensive end of the field which is making us a more potent offensive team.

The Amherst game was played Sunday at Amherst, making up the ppd game from last weekend. Their field was in great shape and the weather was beautiful. We came out flying in the first quarter. Our #1 goal was to have fun, as I thought we played much of the Bowdoin game in an attempt not to lose, instead of attacking and playing to win. Amherst had been the odds on favorite to be the second team in the league going into the weekend. On Saturday they lost in OT to Wesleyan. I was surprised but not shocked as I thought Wesleyan was very good. After our quick start Amherst made some excellent adjustments both tactically and emotionally. They jumped right back into the game by playing very aggressive defense and going hard to the goal vs. our short sticks. They shut off an attackman and a midfielder with short sticks and played aggressive on ball defense with their very athletic long sticks. This proved to be disruptive and gained them momentum which was rewarded when they went down on offense and scored on some impressive dodges by their athletic midfielders. We were reeling but again hung in there enough to regroup at halftime. We weathered the storm and came out in the 3rd Quarter again as the aggressor, turning a 3-4 halftime deficit into a lead fairly quickly into the 3rd. The rest of the game became a slugfest as I believe both teams lost some of their legs after emotional, hard fought Saturday games and an emotional, hard fought first half. Our defense and goalie again rose to the occasion, holding Amherst to a single second half goal until late in the game when they scored a man up goal with under a minute to play. The final whistle blew and that was when you heard that collective deep breath.

Next up: Trinity at Trinity 1:00, Saturday, April 19

Erin