Rit and I saddled up next to each other fairly early in the Amherst game and bemoaned how we were too much of a turf team still. Early in the game we lost some possessions by not getting the ball out of the grass. We had one grass practice on Tuesday during the week, took Monday and Wednesday off, had thunder shortly into practice on Thursday which sent us to share the Bubble with the women's team and Friday we practiced on Astroturf to save the stadium field for all of the use it would get this weekend. The good news is that we buckled down and the tide turned on the ground ball game, the stadium is once again our home field!

We expected a lot from Amherst and were not disappointed. They present some match up problems in the midfield. They recently switched a middie to attack to shore up a weakness there and it has helped. They are solid in the goal and very aggressive and athletic on defense. Their base scheme is to shut off a lot with their short sticks and get their athletic long sticks on the ball. Often they will shut off one of the attack with a short stick, so now there are two poles in the midfield. The scheme definitely caught us off guard in our regular season game, but we were prepared this time around and were much more effective on offense.

The 1st Q began with Amherst doing exactly what they wanted to do on offense. Their recently converted attackman had 2 goals, their match ups in the midfield were giving us some problems and their senior sharp shooting attackman had 2 man up goals after not getting off any quality shots the last time we played. John West did a great job on him again yesterday, so man up was his opportunity to get his hands free and shoot. The 1st Q saw Amherst take a 5-3 lead. Since we are probably giving up a little over 6 goals a game, you can imagine it was not a great feeling at the end of 1. By the end of the 2nd Q and into the 2nd Half, we made a few subtle adjustments that turned the tide for us defensively. Most importantly, eschewed the league wide scouting reports on which Amherst middie must draw the long stick and poled the guy who had given us some fits the two times we played. He is a very fast, strong small sophomore. He doesn't appear to have great skills but he gets to the goal well and shoots well on the run when he gets there. Maybe more important than his actual production is that he makes your entire defense uneasy when he dodges vs. the short stick. He was much less effective vs. a long stick and we settled down on our settled defense. We also tightened up on man down and treated them more like a feeding team than a shooting team, which was how they were playing. Early in the game they aligned in a 1-4-1, and believe it or not, I do not think we have seen a 1-4-1 all year. The formation should not present huge schematic problems for us, but we were getting a little extended on their feeders and that opened up the middle for their top shooter to get the ball. Much like many 3rd Q's this year, we held Amherst to one goal in the 3rd, and even that one was disappointing.

On offense we shook up the lineup a little, starting Ben Tobey and he came through with two huge goals. He has great quickness, gets ground balls and rides and we felt as if we needed that spark. We took advantage of their shut off pressure scheme by picking for Ben who walked in for a goal. Brian Gault also continued to build his reputation as "instant offense", coming off the bench to get a goal and a assist in the 2nd Q. The 4th Q opened with 2 quick goals by Charley Howe, one off a great play on the face off by Greg Bastis who came screaming off the wing to pick the ball up and get a fast break started. For the day we were paced by Saraceni with 4 and Bastis with 3. Brian McGregor along with wing men Leach and Bastis dominated the face offs, winning 19/26 and our long sticks were dominant in the second half. Bastis received the game ball partly for the 3 goals, but mostly for tenacious wing play on face offs.

The Tufts game started entirely different than the Amherst game (and most of our games) with us taking an early 4-0 lead. It is amazing how just a little let down and a couple of careless errors can change the game, however, as we were unable to pull away by any more than 4 goals in the first half. The game began with them in a zone which we attacked patiently and well, and they did not come back to the zone too much during the game. One of the keys to the start of the game was the tenacious riding of our attack. Tufts was clearly rattled and did not get the ball to their offensive end. As they settled down, they were able to get the ball cleared more and it turned into a hotly contested game.

Their offense is dangerous with 2 very good attackmen and a strong first midfield line. We were too late to slide on one of their middies and he hurt us for 4 goals on the day, along with a couple of assists. Caleb Holmes and John West did a tremendous job on their two attackmen, however. Caleb's guy had two goals, one on an excellent, diving shot and one late unsettled goal. West shut his guy out and caused many turnovers. Ed Brown did not have as difficult a match up, but he was a force on the ball, stripping his attackman often. Tufts did not back down or quit, however, they battled and kept hanging in there. The score at the half was 7-3 and while we felt in control, we certainly did not feel comfortable. Other than us, they were the best riding team we had seen during the year. They have a nice scheme, they also simply ride hard with their attack.

Our offense played well with the usual distribution of goals with the exception of huge 4 goal efforts by Christopher Davis and Charley Howe. Both played very well and scored on dodges as well as with some "hands free" shooting. Otherwise the scoring was well balanced.

Face offs were key again today and Brian McGregor took all but one. It was a physical battle and a hot day (relatively speaking!) but McGregor and his wing men battled hard all day gutting out a 19W 10L performance at the X.

West won the game ball and deservedly so, with Howe a close second.

We have clinched a playoff spot with the NESCAC Championship, we will find out in about a half an hour about the brackets. I will send another email when they are announced.

Erin