It was a great day to be a Panther down in New London yesterday as we picked up another NESCAC road win over the Camels 11-4! The game was much closer than the score indicates as we took advantage of them pressing out at the end of the game and kept the pedal down right until the final whistle.

As I mentioned in my previous email, Conn came into the game after one goal wins over Bowdoin on the road and over Tufts at home last week. We were impressed with what they had done on offense against the Polar Bears and the Jumbos and coming out of yesterday's game, still believe they have some great pieces to work with on offense. They also may have the biggest college lacrosse team I've ever seen with almost a dozen guys 6-4 or taller and many of them are very good lacrosse players. On defense they played their typical packed in zone defense but on the flip side have opened it up a bit on offense this year.

I don't think any of our guys forgot about the verbal onslaught before and during the game from the Conn bench last year (I also didn't let them forget) and in turn I can't recall the last time our guys were as fired up coming up out of the locker room as they were yesterday. While the intensity was there early from our group, the execution wasn't where we needed it to be as Conn took a 3-1 lead early in the 2nd quarter. At that point we began to settle down on offense and started to generate some pretty good looks against the zone. With goals from Andrew Metros, Jon Broome, and finally a low to high rip from Stew Kerr we took a 4-3 lead into halftime.

We exchanged goals to start the 2nd half and then slowly started to pull away with a few more goals against the zone to make it 8-4 with 11 minutes left in the game. When Jon Broome scored our final goal we finished on a 10-1 run starting in the 2nd quarter. One of the things I've been hoping to see from our group is for us to keep our focus after we get up on an opponent and not let our guard down mentally, something we've displayed a few times already this year. Yesterday, once we took the lead it was Conn that started making some uncharacteristic mistakes down the stretch while our guys stayed dialed in mentally. After a truly abysmal defensive performance against Springfield, it was encouraging to see our defensive unit respond the way they did yesterday. The game ball went to Nate Gaudio after another outstanding performance between the pipes, he's playing the best lacrosse of his career right now.

Any NESCAC win is a big win but when it's against an undefeated, ranked opponent, on the road, it's that much sweeter. We're scheduled to take on St. Lawrence on Tuesday but Mother Nature may have a say in whether we make the trip up to Canton or not. Either way we're back at it this morning and look forward to seeing how this group responds now that everyone's patting them on the back.