5/12
Middlebury
defeated
write with some more details tomorrow, but you should know
excellent and they were up 8-5 at the half and the Panthers were gutsy in
the second half, no quit in 'em!
5/13
We will
play
May 19.
semis. I have not yet heard many details on the game.
obviously be strong. We handled them 18-7 last year in the Quarterfinal
round, but that certainly will not be of much assistance this weekend.
They
have one excellent midfielder, a returning 2nd Team AA, who is a big,
strong, lefty Australian. Their Attack has been doing most of the damage
this year on the offensive end. They are improved on the defensive end
with
a couple of AA candidates and a goalie who won the league MVP in a very
strong conference.
finishers. The 6'5 UMBC transfer did some damage in the 1st half scoring
2
on dodges and setting up another. He was a handful, but as the 1st half
and
3rd quarter went on Lesher took the ball away from
him and he became
exhausted. Then, in the 3rd, Grayson Fertig
landed a big hit on him and put
him out for the game. Their two Canadiens at
attack, one righty and one
lefty, were shut down by Caleb Holmes and Sebby Astrada but both ended up
with 3 goals. They are just excellent at finishing opportunities,
shooting
and picking up a junk goal here and there. The part of their game that
was
a little surprising was their goaltending. He had a nice game, assisted
by
a few terrible shots, a few bad possessions and a few shots hitting him in
the face mask! He made more quality saves than I would have anticipated.
They were big, strong and fast at defense. The long stick middie is 6'5 and
can run, but he did look as if he got tired and was never much of a factor
in the game.
Sebby Astrada won the game
ball for us for stellar play on a top level AA
attackman. Zach Herbert also had a great second
half scoring 3 goals and
assisting on the winning goal to Matt Dunn. I was struck a little by the
similarities to watching our game and the Lakers/Spurs game. Dave Seeley
and Matt Dunn had a few turnovers during the game, just as
terribly until the 4th Quarter of their game. But, when it counted they
did
not give up on themselves, both Dave and Matt ended up 2g's/2a's and Matt
made a smart cut on the crease with 3 min's left to receive the feed from
Herbert and the winning goal.
Whittier did have a possession after a time out with 45 seconds left but
they were unable to generate a quality shot after wasting much of the time
with Freshman Will Rawson (Long Stick Middie)
harassing the ball. The
middie with the ball was a lefty Canadien
with an excellent shot and stick,
so I wasn't necessarily feeling great when he was winding up for a decent
look at the cage, but someone checked the ball out of his stick and the ball
went out of bounds. We got the ball in bounds to Sebby
who ran out the last
few seconds of the game.
Unfortunately, the women were playing simultaneously (beat William Smith to
get to Semis), it was Mother's Day, the youth programs in town all had games
and the weather was terrible, all leading to a moderate, but enthusiastic,
crowd. Beautiful weather and a great crowd would have put the game over
the
top. Oh well, we'll take the win and the bad weather!