Middlebury defeated Tufts last evening 9-7 in Medford on the new Tufts Field Turf field.  Tufts has now lost three straight, but they played without their top attackman, 2-time NESCAC Player of the Year, Bryan Griffin and All American defenseman, Ave Cook.  They were an excellent team, so you can imagine their potential at full strength!

The game started at 6:00 with the sun glaring directly into the eyes of the Tufts goalie.  Unfortunately, we were unable to take advantage of what we thought was a very difficult situation for the goalie and the quarter ended 1-1.  Both teams had a couple of great opportunities early, but the goalies made good saves.  Ours were in tight, so the sun was not a factor.  We actually thought about having our guys take some outside shots as the sun was potentially that difficult.  Fortunately, by the start of the 2^nd Quarter the sun was low enough that it was no longer a factor.  We scored a couple of back to back goals in the 2^nd Quarter to take a 3-1 lead.  Both goals were scored by Senior Midfielder Jamie Duke, one on a feed and one off a dodge and a great shot.  It was encouraging to see Jamie get those goals as he had played tight in a few games, including the latter stages of the Amherst game.  He came out and addressed the issue in the best manner, he practiced great.  He was on fire in the first practice after the Amherst game and it carried over to the Tufts game.  Hopefully it will provide an example for everyone on the team.  We cooled off as the quarter progressed and found ourselves up 3-1 late in the first half, when we gave up 2 late goals, leaving us slightly deflated at halftime. 

The players responded very quickly at halftime and felt confident heading into the 3^rd Quarter.  The game opened up a bit for both teams in the second half,  however, we had stretches throughout the game during which we did not have the ball enough.  They possessed the ball fairly well, their face off man battled Pete Mellen well, and they rode well.  We were poor in any specific phase of the clearing game, but different breakdowns in the clearing game, along with quality riding on their part, contributed to a lower than usual success rate clearing.  We generated some nice offense when we did have the ball.  We played 6 attakmen fairly regularly and all of them made quality contributions.  We were once again paced by Jim Cabrera’s 3 goals, while Jon Sisto added a couple of assists, Duke had his 2 goals and Travis Meyer had a goal and two nice assists on skip passes to attackmen, once to Cabrera and once to Nick Bastis for a late goal.  

Alex Palmisano paced the defense with 18 saves, his highest total of the year.  They have an outstanding first midfield line, and without their top attackman in the lineup, we were bumping Ed Brown off his attackman and up into the midfield against one of the top 2 midfielders.  We were happy with the results as Ed definitely kept his man at bay when he was on him.  Ed’s middie also rushed a couple outside shots when he received the ball while Ed was still switching off of his attackman and onto the midfielder.  Their top midfielder is excellent and he was able to dodge our long stick midfielders for a couple of goals.  Mike Murray and Chip Campbell did a great job on-ball as short stick d-mids and running the field, although our decision making and execution in the open field could have been better.  Will Rawson did a nice job on their feeding attackman, stripping him on a big possession late in the game.  

We play a very tough Bowdoin team this weekend at home, Saturday at 1:00pm.  I will write to you regarding the details of this weekend’s Alumni activities in a separate email.