While the rest of the Northeast was getting hit by heavy rain and wind, we had a pretty nice day for lacrosse up in Lewiston on Saturday. Going into the game I was interested to see how our guys would come out in their first game of the year and match up against Bates who had three games under their belts already. It didn't take long to see that our guys were ready to go.

In a sign of things to come, Brian Foster got us going by winning the opening draw to himself for a fast break. Unfortunately we didn't convert the break but when the ball went out on the sideline it gave us an opportunity to get into our 10 man ride that many of you know as "40". We put the ball down on the ride and before Bates could match up, Pete Smith found Matt Virtue on the doorstep for a 1-0 lead. Brian would go on to win 14 out of 17 face offs on the day and was awarded the game ball.

On the ensuing face off the ball squirted into our offensive zone and as we came out of the pile with the ball Alex Englert flipped the ball to Jack Balaban for our second goal which put us up 2-0 less than a minute into the game.

Besides face offs, the story of the game was our improved defense and the play of Ryan Deane between the pipes. Even though Bates outshot us by a wide margin, they didn't have a ton of great looks at the cage. When they did, Ryan was there to make the save. He finished with 20 saves on the day and I just found out that he won NESCAC player of the week. Not bad for a walk-on who was our 5th string goalie as a freshman. It's a pretty neat story and not only has he earned it through hard work but it couldn't happen to a nicer kid.

Offensively we didn't have a great day, the two guys who played well were juniors David Hild and Andrew Conner. Each finished with two goals and continue to shoot the ball very well. Our attack simply didn't play well, they were stripped many times and forced the ball inside quite a bit. We'll need them to pick it up if we're going to be a good offensive group this year.

It was great to see Hieu Nguyen after the game who now works for Bates. You should know that even though he was caught wearing a red jacket during the game he still bleeds blue!

Next up we're at Springfield on Wednesday at 5pm. They are a typical Springfield team in that they're tough and athletic. They have some good guys in the midfield including a face off man who's won 65% of his draws against good competition. We'll need a good day out of Brian Foster again and hope that our offense can pick it up going forward.