We wrapped up our preseason yesterday on Youngman field with a round robin scrimmage with St. Mike's and Hamilton.  Earlier in the week we were worried about even being able to get the scrimmages in due to the weather forecast and by Saturday morning the skies had cleared and we ended up with a beautiful day for lacrosse.  Sunny and in the high 40's, we've certainly been lucky with the weather so far this spring.

This spring as Hamilton enters the NESCAC and now appears on our regular season schedule, we made the decision to approach our last scrimmage day a little differently than in previous years.  Last spring we played our younger guys against St. Mike's and went with a more experienced group against Hamilton.  The results ended up being a 5-4 "win" (we don't keep score on the field in a scrimmage) over St. Mike's and a 17-1 "win" over Hamilton.

Fast forward to yesterday and due to that fact that we'll see Hamilton again in just over three weeks, we decided to approach our scrimmage with the Continentals like we did our Union/SLU scrimmages and play everyone on the roster.  We also decided that we'd go into the St. Mike's scrimmage as if it were a game and play the group that we feel would start if it had been our opener.

Against St. Mike's our guys showed up and played pretty well from start to finish.  It was a relatively close first half as we built a 4-1 lead early in the 2nd quarter.  The next few minutes showed how quickly things can change in a lacrosse game as they took advantage of a few mental errors on our part and cut the score to 4-3.  From there we'd score the final six goals of the scrimmage and came away feeling pretty good about what we saw on the field.

Tim Cahill is going to get a lot of looks inside this year and hopefully he's going to be able to put the ball in the back of the net for us.  Up until this point he's our leading scorer through the four scrimmages but he has the potential to average 3.5 goals a game this year, we'll find out soon enough if he's ready to make the jump this year .  On the other end of the equation, Mike Giordano is going to find a lot of open guys in our offense this year.  He'll also keep opposing defenses honest in guarding the crease at all times, Mike has tremendous vision and hopefully he's also ready to become a big-time player this spring.  The third attack spot is still wide open with Juniors Stew Kerr and Scott Redmond both doing some good things and senior Jack Balaban right there with them.  All three of these guys will play early and I'm excited to find out who's going to step up.

Overall against St. Mike's we played well in all phases of the scrimmage.  We cleared and rode pretty well, we were 3 for 7 on man up, we won 9 of 14 face offs and won the ground ball battle.  Nate Gaudio also finished with 7 saves and only 3 goals against showing that he's ready to go.  Coming out of the St. Mike's scrimmage the general consensus from the staff and among the players was that we were making good progress and all felt good going into the Hamilton scrimmage later on that afternoon.

While we got off to a quick start against Hamilton and were up 2-0, it was clear from the first whistle that this wasn't last year's Hamilton squad.  The energy and intensity that Hamilton brought into our scrimmage this year was more like a regular season game and they came out flying.  After our first two tallies, they'd go on to score the next five in a row.  The most impressive goal during that stretch came from someone that wasn't on the Hamilton roster last spring but looks to be their best player this year, Bryan Hopper.

Bryan is a sophomore transfer from Lehigh and is quite an impressive athlete as he is not only their main face off specialist but he'll most likely be their best offensive midfielder this year.  His goal to put them up 3-2 came when he won the face off forward, scooped up the ground ball, and then stuck a righty shot on the run from about 11 yards. That goal really got the Hamilton team fired up and he then went on to score the next goal off a rebound to make it 4-2, Johnny on the spot.   This kid was one of, if not the best athlete on the field yesterday and will be a difference maker for Hamilton for the next three years. The Division 1 transfers that are starting to pop up in the NESCAC on a yearly basis are really making a difference on the field.  Obviously Hamilton, but also Tufts, Conn College, and most of all, Wesleyan have started to go hard after these kids, interesting to see how that goes over the next few years….

Once we went down 5-3, our guys responded the way you'd want them to in a hard fought game. We picked up our intensity and would go on to outscore Hamilton 5-4 the rest of the way.  The most impressive performances during a game where we didn't play our best were from junior Andrew Metros and first-year Cal Williams.  As I've mentioned before, Cal is a long stick midfielder from Wayland, MA and has made an immediate impact.  We haven't had many 6-1, 200lb defenseman that move like Cal over the years, the closest guy I can compare Cal to is Michael Van Lokeran, class of 1999. Cal is a little bigger but just like Michael, has a great stick and is every bit as athletic.  Needless to say, Cal has a very bright future ahead of him.

I may have mentioned a few things about Andrew Metros over the past few years but his inconsistent play along with a lack of focus has kept him from playing a larger role on game days.  It's still early in the season but over the past two weeks Andrew has been the most explosive athlete on the field for us on a daily basis.  Yesterday it was really Andrew's ground ball play along with his ability to run the field that sparked our offense as well as our team in the 2nd half against Hamilton.  When we can get Cal and Andrew in the middle of the field, good things are going to happen.   Hopefully Andrew can keep it up as we get ready for Bates this weekend.

Overall, "losing" a scrimmage to Hamilton yesterday 9-7 may have been the best thing that could have happened to our team depending on the response from our guys going forward.  Judging by our 9:30-11:15 practice this morning and 11:30-1:00 film session, I learned that this team is ready to work and not satisfied with where we're at right now.  Who knows how things will turn out as we go forward but I couldn't be more excited about the group we have this year.

Finally, congrats to our Women's Ice Hockey team that just won the NESCAC Championship in OT, 1-0 this afternoon in Kenyon Arena!!!!

Not only was this a huge win for Coach Bill Mandigo and his team but the win also prevented Amherst from winning the NESCAC Championship in all of the four big winter team sports!

I realize that some of you don't follow NESCAC sports as closely as you might have in the past but what Amherst is doing right now is definitely worth noting.  Amherst won both the Men's and Women's basketball NESCAC Championship last weekend and beat Middlebury in Men's Ice Hockey earlier this afternoon for another NESCAC Championship.  This coming off of a fall that featured Amherst winning NESCAC Championships in Football (8-0) as well as both Men's and Women's Soccer.  There definitely seems to be a pattern here though as it was the Middlebury Women's Field Hockey team that knocked off #2 Amherst squad, in OT, in the NESCAC semis to stop the Fall sweep as well!

Here's to it not taking a women's team to stop a spring Amherst sweep this May!

Next up is the season opener against the Bates Bobcats next Saturday, 3/10 at 1pm.  Hopefully if the weather cooperates we'll be out on Youngman again and hope the boys are ready to go.

Thanks for all of your continued support!

DC