We de feated Geneseo 14-5 today, advancing to the Quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament. We will play Stevens Tech (Hoboken, NJ) on Wednesday at Home, probably at 3:00. Stevens beat Springfield today 8-4 and will provide a good test. They have had an excellent season. They are up tempo, they have an excellent goalie, one of the best long stick middies in the country and a number of guys who can score. I am not surprised they beat Springfield as they are a strong team, I am surprised it was 8-4, I thought it might be more like a 14-10 game.

Our game was tighter than the score indicates, at least in the first half. Geneseo has some nice offensive talent and they possess the ball well. They advanced to the NCAA tournament by beating Cortland in their league championship game. Cortland allowed them to completely control the tempo, often just passing the ball around the perimeter many times before thinking of going to the goal. We would drop the ball out of boredom before the ball could ever go around that much! Our defense did not shut off or do anything crazy, but we put much more pressure on them and it did at least force them to play offense and go to the goal. They have one All American type attackman, a couple of other solid attackmen and a handful of very good middies. They provided some match up problems as their middies are tough vs. short sticks. We played great middie defense and Ed Brown played a great game vs. their top attackman.

Our offense did a good job of controlling the ball, so they did not have all of the possession time, while still being aggressive and generating quality shots. We were not winning a lot of face offs early, so quality possessions were important. As the game progressed we did a better job on face offs, as our wing play improved. We were up 3-1 after 1 Quarter and it was a comfortable quarter for us. The 2nd Quarter ended with them having some momentum after we threw the ball away a little in transition a few times and they had a couple of big goals that got them jacked up.

We outscored them 8-1 in the second half as our transition game and riding game proved to be the difference in pulling away. Rit did a great job running the box, getting us several goals as we beat them in the substitution game and executed the 6 v. 5 that was created. With solid 6 v. 6 offense and defense as well, it was a quality second half, worthy of an NCAA playoff game effort.

Dave Leach received the game ball as he was 2 goals and 2 assists on the day, but he also just did a great job running a lot of the offense, generating shots for himself and teammates while not turning the ball over.