This update will not contain as much detail as usual because there were 3

games and I have lots to catch up on after break!

Spring Break results:

Middlebury 17 Denison 9

Middelbury 6 Gettysburg 10

Middlebury 14 Connecticut College 8

Good break overall. We played great against Denison, very athletic and the

attack shot well. Holt Hopkins was sensational with 7 goals on awesome

shots. Zach Herbert, Dave Seeley and Greg Carroll are all Sophomore

attackmen who alternate at the other 2 spots alongside Holt. It is a

formidable attack unit. Zach had 4 or 5 vs. Conn. College when Holt

"dropped" down to 2, so they will all complement each other well and pick up

the slack if someone is not on.

The midfield is very deep and athletic. The scoring will be balanced in the

midfield. We are asking them to be athletes, extend on defense, shut people

off and run the field. No big guns necessarily, but depth and balance. We

were able to get Curt Goldman, one of our captains and starting midfielders

back for the Conn game, but we missed him in the Gettysburg and Denison

games. Matt Dunn, Grayson Fertig and Scott Goldman are also hockey playing

midfielders that joined us for the Conn game, so we are at full strength.

Matt Dunn and Curt were particularly impressive vs. Conn on two days of

practice.

Gettysburg was disappointing. We were lethargic in the first quarter and

were down 5-0 early in the second. We played with more energy after that

and beat them 6-5 from that point on, but it was too little/too late. They

are #2 in the country, so it is not a terrible loss, however we did not play

well at all, so it was a disappointing effort.

The guys responded well to the loss and played well against Conn. They also

responded well to the fact that we had two nice days on good fields on the

Thursday and Friday before Conn, as opposed to one cold, windy practice on a

bad field and one rained out practice before the Gettysburg game! It was

good to have the practices on Thursday and Friday to get our grass legs and

pick up some ground balls.

The defense looked strong in all of the games. Most of the goals were

scored versus our man down or in unsettled situations. We should be

difficult to score against in 6 v. 6 situations with our goalie and defense.

Jed Raymond was dominant playing both close defense and also playing some

long stick midfielder. By the end of last year teams would take the top

attackman and hide him when Jed covered him. We are using Jed in different

ways now to insure he has a major impact on every game.

Sorry the notes were not coherent. Lots of information over the 3 games.

We play at Springfield this Saturday at 1:00. Hope you can make it!

Erin