We
defeated Colby today 14-8 to win the NESCAC Championship, also securing
an Automatic Bid to the NCAA Tournament. I have to rush off, but wanted
to
make sure you had the score. More details on the weekend to follow.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
We were
granted the #1 seed in the North so we will host as long as we win.
We open the tournament this Wednesday vs.
soundly earlier in the year). The winner of the Middlebury/NEC game will
play the winner of
legit. ECSU may suffer from traveling to LA in the middle of the week! I
am
waiting to get offers from assistant coaches to scout the game in LA!!
Also in the North: #2 Ithaca vs. Western New England College (beat
Springfield for an AQ) and #3 Cortland State vs. Clarkson
In the South: #1 Gettysburg vs. Stevens Tech; #2 Washington College vs.
Cabrini; #3 Washington and Lee vs. Widener; #4
Hampden Sydney vs. Salisbury
State.
Based on scores during the regular season the most compelling 1st round
match ups are
One of the things we have done well in the playoffs is to concentrate on the
job at hand and not look past opponents or get anxious about title
possibilities before we get to the championship game. We will take
tomorrow
off and then get to work on getting better in the "2nd Season" on
Tuesday in
preparation for Wednesday's game.
A couple of notes on the weekend. It took us a
while to put both Amherst
and Colby away, which is what you would expect during a Final 4 playoff.
Dunn was too much for them to handle with 6 goals. Eric Krieger was
outstanding in the goal with 16 saves and great outlet passing. Andrew
"Gio" Giordano filled in facing off
brilliantly winning approx. 20/25 face
offs after not having faced off much in practice all year.
Colby was a more experienced team and gave us our money's worth. They
have
very good long sticks and they execute their scheme very well. With
back-to-back games you have no time to prepare your players for your second
opponent which made the 1st half of the game interesting. They shut off
Zach Herbert and Dave Seeley with short sticks and even though we were able
to get 8 goals by the half we did not have a great rhythm on offense.
They
inverted their middies all game on offense and we did a good job defending
for the most part, but there were some mistakes in the first half which led
us to get a little flustered and also led to an 8-7 halftime score. You
can
do the math, the final score was 14-8 so it was a much better second half
defensively and a solid offensive half, but not until the 4th Quarter.
Their Senior goalie was outstanding in the cage making
27 saves. He missed
all of last year for Colby which hurt their team immeasurably,
his return
this year turned their season around and inspired a great year for them.
Greg Carroll led the goal scoring with 4 goals while Peter Albro
and Zach
Herbert each had 3 and Matt Dunn had 2 goals and 3 assists. Matt had some
great opportunities denied by the Colby goalie.
A great regular season and league tournament for the boys: 14-1,NESCAC
regular season and tournament champions, #2 ranking in the country, #1
seed
in the North in the playoffs. It is easy for us to take some of these
accomplishments for granted with the success we have had recently, but this
team has had a great regular season and early start to the playoffs.
Let's
hope it continues! Thanks for all of your interest throughout the season.