Middlebury defeated Wesleyan today in the NESCAC Final 9-5 earning a bid to the NCAA Tournament.  In great news for NESCAC, Wesleyan also received an At-Large bid, the first NESCAC team other than Middlebury to receive a bid and they earned it.

It was a tight game all the way with lots of sloppy play between the lines, probably partly due to hard riding by both teams, possibly due to the back-to-back schedule.  I give them lots of credit as we are much deeper and they had a much more difficult game yesterday, but they hung in there all game with us.  It was late in the game before we could feel comfortable. 

Wesleyan plays zone the entire game, so it is always a different tempo than what we are used to.  For the most part, I was happy with the looks we generated on offense.  We were relatively patient and generated quality shots.  There were the normal knocked down and intercepted passes, as well as shots that hit defenders, but those cannot be entirely avoided vs. the zone.  J.P. Coviello came off the bench for us and was the star of the game on offense. He is an excellent shooter as well as a very good passer, so playing the zone was ideal for him.  He usually subs for Jim Cabrera which can limit his time, but he played quite a bit on Sunday and responded with 3 goals and 1 assist.  Nick Bastis was shut out on Saturday, but bounced back with 2 goals and an assist today.  Lots of credit goes to Aaron Herter, Travis Meyer and Dave Leach, however, as we started most of our offense from the midfield as that is where their short stick align in the zone.  Herter was 1G/2A, Leach was 1G/1A, but the numbers don’t show how well they ran the offense.  Rarely did they turn the ball over or force feeds unnecessarily and had we shot a little better, they would have each been credited with several more feeds.  As the game wore on, we actually looked tight on several possessions.  As I mentioned there were turnovers on both sides between the lines, and then playing against the zone, possessions were at a premium, and there were a couple where we looked nervous.  We came out of our funk, however, and finished the game sharply.

The story of the day was defense and Alex Palmisano in the cage.  They have excellent sticks, they can feed and shoot extremely well.  Alex had 17 saves in the game, many of them “circus” saves.  He also had the poise to get the ball out effectively on his outlets.  Our poles did well against a quick, nifty attack.  Our Long Stick Midfielders did an outstanding job on their All League/All American middie.  We struggled a little with their other top middie, who only ended up with 1G and 1A, but he works incredibly hard to get his left hand free and then fires wild, underhand shots all day.  Fortunately, only one of them stuck!

We play the winner of Keene State and Endicott, who play in the play-in game on this Wednesday.  We will play them at home on Saturday, May 14, time TBA.  The winner of that game plays the winner of Springfield/Wesleyan.  I believe we would host all the way through the Semi-Finals if we were to win our 1^st round game on Saturday and our Quarterfinal game on Wednesday, May 14.  We are working out the details of the Semi-Finals. The Semis again fall on graduation weekend, so we have to work on that schedule.

I will let you know what time we play either Keene or Endicott when I find out, probably on Thursday.