Sorry this is late, the crazy weather has been occupying some time! We scrimmaged St. Mike’s this past Saturday at home. We caught a break in the weather, it was sunny and probably mid 40’s, so we could easily play 5 quarters and get everyone in the game without worrying that they would be too cold to play. If you remember, we only dressed 25 for the Dartmouth scrimmage since it was so cold, so this was a great opportunity for our young guys to suit up and play as well.
St. Mike’s was substantially better than they were last year, so the early part of the scrimmage was more competitive. They were extremely patient on offense and mixed up a lot of zone with their man to man, so it was no a high tempo game early. It did take us a little while to get untracked due to this tempo. Their slow-down invert style offense and zone defense was a great way to prepare for the season, however. We see plenty of up-tempo style in practice, we needed to get some quality practice against a slower style. We responded very well on defense. Our short sticks played well behind the cage, particularly Senior Captain Mike Murray, who has been dominant on-ball in the pre-season. It has been great to see some of our other upperclass middies take a lot of pride in their defense as well. Dave Leach, Aaron Herter and Travis Meyer are three of our top middies offensively and they are all playing great defense as well. Jamie Duke is a senior offensive middie who was out with an injury early, but he has played well recently also and rounds out the top middies. Junior Chip Campbell can play both offense and defense, but will be featured on defense. Chip is a great example of the fact that, given some level of athletic ability, middie defense is mostly about heart and the mental strength to want to play defense. Chip was an attackman in high school, played attack his freshman year, was a back up middie all year last year and late in the year realized that playing great defense is a sure way to get on the field at Middlebury. Sure enough he has been working his tail off and will receive substantial minutes for us. He will be inserted primarily at the defensive end with Murray, but both of them give us excellent athletic ability in transition, creating the up-tempo style we want to play.
Our attack scored most of the goals against St. Mike’s and the top 4 were impressive. We didn’t keep score or stats, but Freshman Jim Cabrera would have led us in goals. He scored righty, lefty, off feeds, outside shots, dodges…just about every way imaginable! I would guess he had 5-6 goals. He is very athletic and can shoot. He will receive plenty of playing time, despite only being a freshman and competing against upperclassmen for playing time. The other advantage he has is that he is righthanded. Four of our top attackmen are lefty, so being righty is actually an advantage! Senior Mark Foster finished well and also assisted on several of Cabrera’s goals. Foster has found a knack for getting the ball to Cabrera thus far in practice and it paid off in the scrimmage. Juniors Henry Sheehan and Jon Sisto both played well, scoring and assisting on several goals apiece. Sophomore Nick Bastis was injured but will receive quality minutes as well if he can get back this week.
Our long sticks were not pressed much by St. Mike’s, but I was pleased with their discipline and patience. 3 Upperclassmen will start with Ed Brown, Will Rawson and Gabe Wood. Two freshmen, Glenn Bickley and James Guay, are our starters at Long Stick Midfield. Both have great sticks and they are quick and athletic. They should help our transition game. Alex Palmisano continues to play well in the cage and outlets the ball extremely well, he took his lessons from Krieger last year!
We hope to open our season this Saturday vs. Colby at Colby. There is some bad weather coming in, so we do have some concerns. I will keep you posted if there are any changes.
Erin